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| Brixham hoaxer admits sending white powder to MPs | Brixham hoaxer admits sending white powder to MPs |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| A hoaxer has admitted sending white powder marked "anthrax" to mostly female MPs and other politicians. | |
| Richard Hayes, 40, from Brixham in Devon, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of sending a package intending to create a belief of a noxious substance. | Richard Hayes, 40, from Brixham in Devon, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of sending a package intending to create a belief of a noxious substance. |
| At Exeter Crown Court, Hayes was told he would be sentenced in November. | At Exeter Crown Court, Hayes was told he would be sentenced in November. |
| The offences took place from May 2011 to April 2014, with victims including former Labour MP Heidi Alexander and Conservative MP Chloe Smith. | The offences took place from May 2011 to April 2014, with victims including former Labour MP Heidi Alexander and Conservative MP Chloe Smith. |
| The court heard packages were sent to the offices of: | |
| Hayes will undergo a psychiatric report and a pre-sentence report before he is sentenced. | |
| Police said the packages were examined after being sent and found to contain various non-hazardous substances, including flour, protein powder and bicarbonate of soda. | |
| Hayes was linked to the hoaxes after his DNA was taken in 2018, when he was cautioned for harassing a former partner. | |
| His handwriting was forensically compared with the writing on 12 of the envelopes and he was arrested by officers from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU). | |
| Det Sgt Mark Wallis, from ERSOU's Counter Terrorism Policing unit, said: "I am pleased that Hayes has pleaded guilty, potentially saving his victims the strain of attending a drawn-out court case and having to re-live the shock of uncovering the powder and not knowing what it was. | |
| "These hoaxes caused significant strain, not only on all of Hayes' victims, but also on the police and fire services, who used specialist chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear officers to deal with every incident." |