A panicked groom who staged a bomb hoax on his wedding day so his bride would not find out he bungled the booking has been jailed for 12 months.
Neil McArdle had forgotten to fill in the forms to marry the “love of his life” Amy Williams, but could not face telling her that the big day “that was all she talked about” was not going to happen.
Instead of saying “we need to talk” the 36-year-old tried to “weasel” out of his predicament, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
As his bride got ready for her wedding he slipped out of their house in Kirkby, Merseyside, went to a phone box, disguised his voice and rang Liverpool Register Office, claiming: “This is not a hoax call. There’s a bomb in St George’s Hall and it will go off in 45 minutes.”
The call, 11 days after the Boston Marathon bombing, provoked “terror” at the office inside the neo-classical edifice of St George’s Hall in the centre of Liverpool, which was immediately evacuated and emergency services called.
Miss Williams was left standing outside in her wedding dress with her mother and the rest of the wedding party as the area swarmed with police racing to the scene.
His would-be in-laws were already suspicious, the court heard, and a row broke out with Miss Williams’s sister telling a “flustered” McArdle: “You probably done the bomb scare yourself.”
Police quickly traced the call and the defendant was arrested the same day and admitted to his “embarrassment and shame” that he panicked over bungling the forms and staged the bomb scare.
Miss Williams has stood by the defendant, the court heard, and they are still together.
A tearful McArdle, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to a single charge of communicating false information with intent on April 26, was jailed for 12 months by Judge Norman Wright.
As well as serving 12 months in jail, McArdle was also ordered to pay £100 court costs.