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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Gary Bolton guilty of selling fake bomb detectors | Gary Bolton guilty of selling fake bomb detectors |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A businessman has been found guilty of making and selling fake bomb detectors. | A businessman has been found guilty of making and selling fake bomb detectors. |
| The Old Bailey heard the devices made by Gary Bolton, 47, were nothing more than boxes with handles and antennae. | The Old Bailey heard the devices made by Gary Bolton, 47, were nothing more than boxes with handles and antennae. |
| The prosecution said he sold them for up to £10,000 each, claiming they could detect explosives. The trial heard that the company had a £3m annual turnover selling the homemade devices. | |
| Bolton, of Redshank Road in Chatham, Kent, had denied two charges of fraud. Sentencing has been adjourned. | |
| Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, told the court Mr Bolton knew the devices - which were also alleged to be able to detect drugs, tobacco, ivory and cash - did not work but supplied them anyway to be sold to overseas businesses. | |
| They were made at Bolton's Kent home and at the offices of Global Technology Ltd. | |
| Mr Whittam said one company X-rayed a device and found nothing inside the box. | |
| 'Metal walls' | |
| He said tests on the detectors, carried out as far back as 2001, had suggested they performed no better than random searches for explosives. | |
| Jurors found Bolton guilty of a charge of making an article for use in the course of fraud and one of supplying an article for use in the course of fraud between January 2007 and July last year. | |
| Bolton claimed that the devices worked with a range of 766 yards (700m) at ground level and as far as two and half miles (4km) in the air and said they were effective through lead-lined and metal walls, water, containers and earth. | |
| But "double-blind" tests on a Mole device as early as 2001 showed it had a successful detection rate of 9%, with Bolton sent the test results. | |
| Sentencing was adjourned to a later, unfixed date and Bolton was released on conditional bail. |