May 24, 2010

Women avoid jail time for airline bomb threats

By Michael Anstee

Two teenage women who telephoned threats to an international airline claiming to be suicide bombers narrowly avoided jail at the Christchurch District Court today.

Georgina Lilliam Langley, 19, and Stephanie Kate Austin, 18, had pleaded guilty to two charges of threatening to harm people or property, at an earlier hearing.

The charges related to two telephone calls made by the pair to Singapore Airlines during which they disguised their voices and pretended to be terrorists.

In the first 52min call on November 5, they attempted to book eight business class tickets before threatening staff and stating their intention to blow up a plane, insisting, ?Everyone will die today?.

The second call, made on November 29, lasted 106min during which the women said a bomb had been planted in the cockpit of the plane and would explode within 10 minutes. Singapore Airlines alerted the commander of an airborne flight out of Auckland and staff conducted a discreet search. No bomb was found.

Another plane on the ground was searched and an increased police presence was used as passengers boarded the aircraft.

Austin?s defence counsel, Vanessa Sugrue said, ?While the offending was dramatic and extreme, it was not sinister.?

She said her client was deeply remorseful for her actions and added that through her actions, she had now lost her ability to pursue her chosen career as a nanny.

April Kelland, defending Langley, added: ?The offending had been stupid, not thought out in any way and has been a salutary lesson to them.?

In sentencing the duo, Judge Jane Farish said both were ?equally culpable in causing a huge amount of anxiety and concern for an awful lot of people?.

She said her starting point for sentencing was a custodial sentence but this was mitigated by the pair?s immediate guilty pleas.

She added that pre-existing conditions suffered by both defendants diminished their intent to do harm.

Judge Farish sentenced both women to three months of community detention with a 12 hour daily curfew, 200 hours of community work and 12 months supervision with conditions to be assessed for their alcohol use and to undertake any counselling or treatment as directed by the probation service.

She described their punishment as a ?wrap-around sentence?.

?It will punish, deter and hold you accountable but will hopefully also prevent you from appearing before this court again," she said.