A police officer who sparked a nationwide terror alert by making a hoax 999 call to his own force has been jailed for seven years.
PC Amar Tasaddiq Hussain sent West Midlands Police into “overdrive” after phoning through an anonymous warning that a terrorist with links to Syria was planning to kidnap and behead a Muslim policeman.
Jailing Hussain at Stafford Crown Court, Judge Michael Chambers QC criticised the 29-year-old officer for showing no remorse and pleading not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence.
The officer, who is suspended from duty, was charged along with Adil Bashir, 26, and Muhammad Ali Sheikh, 31, both of Birmingham, with two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
All three denied the charges but were convicted. Bashir and Ali Sheikh were each given three year sentences.
During a three-week trial, Stafford Crown Court heard that Hussain told his force that a man with links to Islamic State and Syria who he referred to as “Irfan the terrorist” planned to abduct an officer.
Hussain had hoped his bogus tip-off would discredit an official within an Islamic community group.
The court was told that the “false and malicious” call about the kidnap plot, and a further two calls about an alleged sham marriage, were made to target two men named Faisal Sami and Irfan Ul-Haq because of a “personal grudge”.
