A lorry driver who blackmailed one of the UK’s largest pumpkin growers by claiming to have poisoned crops with deadly potassium cyanide just weeks before the Halloween harvest has been jailed for eight years.
‘Pumpkin poisoner’ Michael Young gave Spalding grower David Bowman a week to pay £50,000 after claiming to have “selectively poisoned” his pumpkin crop, local paper Spalding Today reported. Young warned Bowman not to attempt to harvest or sell a single pumpkin until the demands were fully met, and asked for payment in online currency Bitcoin, the paper said.
Despite tests finding the pumpkins had only been injected with water, Bowman told FPJ that the FSA had asked him to plough up “one small field” where Young had taken photos. Spalding Today reported that this loss of crop was worth £120,000.
“The police nailed him within two days and our harvest carried on as usual,” Bowman told FPJ.
Bowman said Young worked for a local haulage firm, although would not disclose which one, and said it was possible he’d worked on a pumpkin load in the past. “He was not known to us,” he said.
In a letter, Young told Bowman he would 'go down in history' as the farmer who introduced potassium cyanide into the UK food chain, the Telegraph reported. 'You are about to become famous for all the wrong reasons,' Young wrote.
Spalding Today reported that prosecutor Stuart Lody said: “There is no evidence whatsoever that cyanide was ever used. The pumpkins contained water.
“The defendant sent photographs of pumpkins being injected with a substance and articles about potassium cyanide obtained from the internet.”
The papersaid that Michael Cranmer-Brown, in mitigation, had told the court: “He is extremely sorry. There was no actual contamination of any of the crop. Water was the only matter that had been injected.”
Young, 53, of Boston, Lincs, admitted a charge of blackmail as well as two charges of possession of drugs with intent to supply from a previous incident.
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