News / Hoax caller offered chance to avoid jail
AN APPRENTICE electrician from a Shetland fishing community who triggered a major land, air and sea search after making a hoax call to the local coastguard has been given the chance to avoid jail.
David Williamson, of Millbrook, Symbister, on the isle of Whalsay, admitted sending out the false Mayday message on 3 October last year when he appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday.
Sheriff Graeme Napier deferred sentence for three weeks for the 19 year old to demonstrate his remorse by paying a large sum of cash and making a standing order to the emergency services who spent almost £13,000 on the operation.
The court heard that Williamson had been drinking for 12 hours when he sent out the call saying a well known local character had fallen overboard in Whalsay harbour that morning.
It emerged that he is about to attend an alcohol awareness course after being fined £800 and banned from driving for two years for driving while two and a half times the alcohol limit last July.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said Williamson had been drinking with three friends at Whalsay Boating Club when they were invited to carry on the party on board the visiting fishing boat Crystal River by its skipper.
Around 6.15am the group left the vessel, but Williamson stayed behind long enough to lift the boat’s VHF radio receiver and send out the Mayday message.
The message was heard by the mate on board a nearby ferry. He approached the young men, who all denied any knowledge of the call, though Williamson did tell his friends he had left a message without revealing its contents.
The coastguard rescue coordination centre in Lerwick also heard the Mayday and immediately launched the Sumburgh-based coastguard helicopter, the Lerwick lifeboat and the Whalsay land-based coastguard team to conduct a full search of the area.
“This was a major air, land and sea rescue effort which at the time was using all the life saving resources which were available within a very significant geographical area,” Mr Mackenzie said.
Around 7am one of Williamson’s friends heard the helicopter hovering over Symbister harbour and, realising what had happened, called his father who immediately went down to the harbour to inform the rescue team it had been a hoax.
The entire operation was stood down just before 8am and the coastguard immediately put in a complaint to the police.
Mr Mackenzie said that later the same day the coastguard helicopter and the Lerwick lifeboat were called out to a genuine emergency after a woman went over the cliffs at Sumburgh Head.
“Clearly should that emergency have happened slightly earlier in the day when these resources were responding to the hoax then their ability to respond would clearly have been seriously compromised,” Mr Mackenzie said.
He added that the full cost of the Whalsay search had reached £12,930.
Defence agent Neil McRobert said that Williamson had not been acting with “evil intent” and was extremely remorseful, especially coming from a fishing community so dependent on the emergency services.
He said he had already apologised to those people affected and produced three character references, including one from a member of the lifeboat crew involved in the search.
Mr McRobert said: “I think the only logical interpretation, if it’s at all possible to get logic here, is that his judgment was clouded. He describes drinking for about 12 hours.
“It was done as a joke, as a prank and not done with the intention of causing everything that flowed thereafter.”
He added that Williamson was “petrified of the consequences of that brief moment of absolute stupidity”, and asked for him to avoid a jail sentence by paying compensation, including his entire savings of £2,500.
Sheriff Napier told Williamson that what he had done was “very, very dangerous” and that he would be entitled to send him to prison.
He said he was not permitted to order compensation as there was no identifiable victim, but added that it would be “inappropriate” not to take into account the possibility of a donation to the voluntary rescue services as a sign of Williamson’s remorse.
He deferred sentence until 27 July for such arrangements to be made, saying: “I would have to be satisfied that this is clearly an indication of his remorse and not the remorse of his parents. I am looking for something genuine from him.
“That might influence me to consider that it would be a case in which I would not impose a custodial sentence which would be otherwise merited in this case.”
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