The train was stuck in a tunnel at the time of the hoax

A drunk top civil servant, who said he was a Muslim with a bomb on London's Tube, has been jailed for 12 months.

Northern Ireland-born Ministry of Justice official George McFaul had to be protected from angry commuters after the hoax.

The 43-year-old told passengers they had just one minute to live before his rucksack device detonated.

McFaul, of Turner Road, Walthamstow, east London, had pleaded guilty to communicating false information.

"It is going to go off in 60 seconds," he was said to have repeated.

London's Southwark Crown Court also heard that one terrified woman traveller immediately pulled the emergency lever to alert the driver.

The Northern Line train, which had been stuck in a tunnel at the time because of signal problems, then started moving and pulled into King's Cross station. As the doors opened, all onboard fled, leaving the "occasional binge-drinker" still in his seat.

No danger

He was immediately surrounded by station staff, who took one look at the state he was in and decided there was no danger.

One of them then searched his rucksack, finding nothing more threatening than a paperback novel and a mobile phone.

Station supervisor Michael McKenna later told police the passengers, who were still on the platform, were "angry and I had to keep them apart from him".





