A Bolton man who sent child porn to a school and a bomb to a post office because they sent him the wrong mail has been jailed for seven years today.
Iain Merrick, 39, of Cheriton Gardens, Horwich, Bolton, was found guilty of 22 offences after a two-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.
The offender was charged with one count of sending an explosive substance with intent, 16 counts of making indecent photographs of children, four counts of distributing indecent photographs and one count of possessing indecent material.
The criminal gained a ‘vendetta’ for the post office after he claimed to receive 30 misdirected letters a day on his doormat.
After the case Detective Sergeant Russ Stubbs, of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, said: “Merrick waged a one-man crusade against the post office, a one-sided conflict that seems to have been ignited by the tiniest of sparks.
”A perceived problem with mail going to the wrong house was all it took for Merrick to launch an escalating vendetta which involved sexual slurs and sending a letter bomb to a post office.
”Had this crude device gone off, then the unfortunate postal worker who opened it could have suffered very serious injuries. You do not need a vivid imagination to foresee the kind of damage that razor blades and fish hooks could have caused to a human being.
”One of his most damaging actions was to post indecent images of children and babies to local primary schools, with details of two postal workers on the back.”
The explosive device was found by a postal worker in Horwich who discovered the bomb in a post box on April 15.
The homemade bomb was found to contain a 12 V battery, small broken light bulb, ground up match-heads, razor blades and fish hooks.
The device, which was concealed in brown packaging, was set to be activated once two large nails attached to wires touched.
The discovery triggered a mass evacuation of the immediate area including a 100metre cordon being set around the scene.
A specialist Police Bomb Disposal Unit managed to unarm the bomb and traced it origin back to Merrick through DNA evidence.
When police searched Merrick’s home, officers found a pen which contained terrorism-related documents entitled Bombs: Explosives, Experiments, The Anarchist Cookbook and Mujahideen Explosives Handbook.
The unemployed Merrick denied any wrongdoing and claimed he had been ‘experimenting’ with chemicals at home – adding that he had even ‘blown himself up’ twice during his bizarre experiments.
Merrick was also charged for possession of child pornography after he sent a number of Bolton schools indecent images of children with two postal workers names on the back.
The Bolton man also put white stickers around the area falsely claiming one postal worker was a convicted paedophile.
“Had this information got out into the wider public, as was presumably his intention, then these completely innocent people would not only have had their careers and reputations destroyed, but they could have been subjected to vigilante attacks,” added Detective Stubbs.
“Thankfully Merrick was never allowed to succeed in his plans which could have left careers destroyed and innocent postal workers with severe mental distress and physical injury.”
After the events one of Merrick’s neighbours discovered that he had recorded footage of her going about her home.
The offender had also posted videos on how to make a pipe bomb and the mechanics of an electronic fly zapper on YouTube.
Ben Southam, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West Complex Casework Unit, said: “Iain Merrick had a long standing grudge against postal workers from the Royal Mail and embarked upon a vendetta against them.
“His actions in planting a viable explosive device in a post box were dangerous and carried a real risk of serious harm.
“In addition, he caused great distress to staff at the schools who received indecent images of children in the post and to the postal workers whose names were found on the images.”
Merrick was jailed for seven years with an extended license for five years.
Image courtesy of EEPaul, with thanks.
