A groom who staged a bomb hoax on his own wedding day to avoid admitting to his bride that he hadn't filled out the necessary paperwork to finalize their marriage was sentenced to 12 months in jail on Tuesday.
36-year-old Neil McArdle forgot to finish writing certain forms to lock in his marriage to fiancée Amy Williams, but couldn't bear letting her know about it because the wedding was "all she talked about," the Guardian reported.
During a hearing at Liverpool Crown court, McArdle told the judge that on the morning of their wedding, he left their house while Williams was getting ready. He went to a phone box, warbled his voice, and called the Liverpool register office.
"This is not a hoax call," he told the operator. "There's a bomb in St. George's Hall and it will go off in 45 minutes."
McArdle made the call in April, just 11 days after the Boston marathon bombing occurred in Massachusetts. St. George's Hall was immediately evacuated and emergency crews were called in. McArdle and Williams, along with their entire bridal party, arrived at the building to find it cordoned off by law enforcement officials.
Once St. George's Hall was cleared and no threats to safety were found inside, the staff attempted to help with the "delayed" ceremony, the Guardian reported. But once they checked their records, Hall administrators found that there was no booking scheduled for the wedding that day. Williams' parents grew skeptical - one of Williams' sisters was heard saying to McArdle, "You probably done the bomb scare yourself."
Police traced the call back to the phone booth and arrested McArdle later that day. He said he felt "embarrassment and shame," that he had carried out the bomb threat hoax.
McArdle pleaded guilty at a hearing in April on a charge of communicating false information with intent.
"He realized the day before the wedding was not going to take place and because he did not want to let his fiancée down or [he was too] embarrassed to tell his family, he panicked in the morning and rang St. George's Hall," prosecutor Derek Jones told the court. "He was hoping all weddings would be postponed and it would give him time to book the wedding in the future."
"If it was not so serious, the facts of this case have all the markings of a comedy," defendant Charles Lander said.
Williams and McArdle are still together, despite the ordeal.
