Robin Hood Airport | Digital Crosstalk

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Brian and team, who work for a digital marketing agency run this Digital Crosstalk blog.
Occasionally we might blog about companies and people we work with but for the most part we'll simply be blogging about stories and events which we find interesting.

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18th
JAN

Man arrested after airport bomb Twitter joke

Posted by Brian | Filed under air

: Image via CrunchBase

A joke comment sent by an air passenger to his Twitter account landed the sender in hot water with Anti-Terrorism police.

Paul Chambers from Doncaster tweeted the message after the town’s Robin Hood airport was forced to close a runway after heavy snowfall. Chambers was scheduled to fly from the airport the following week and vented his anger on the micro-blogging service with the comment:

“You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s*** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high.”

Officers from South Yorkshire police were alerted to the message and Chambers was arrested later under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of conspiring to create a bomb hoax.

Chambers was questioned by police for seven hours and had his laptop, iPhone and home computer confiscated. He was released on bail pending further investigation.

There was another sting in the tale for Chambers after he was suspended from his job during the investigation and also banned from Robin Hood airport for life.

“I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they’d never heard of it. I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post. I’m the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine,” Chambers said.

(Photo: http://www.webuser.co.uk/)