Brisbane Airport bomb hoax charge: Man refused bail over evacuation incident

A man charged with making a bomb hoax that caused Brisbane’s International Airport terminal to be evacuated pulled a knife, told people there was a bomb and “wanted police to shoot him”, a Brisbane court has heard.

A MAN who sparked an unprecedented shutdown of the Brisbane Airport when he allegedly chased his wife through the terminal with a knife and claimed he had a bomb has been refused bail.

Magistrate Suzette Coates today slammed the 50-year-old Surfers Paradise man’s actions as “narcissistic” over the February incident in which he allegedly pulled a “huge serrated knife” on his partner and their children as they attempted to board a flight.

Police gather evidence inside the terminal. Picture: AAP/Sarah Marshall

The man allegedly placed a package on a table in the airport’s food court and claimed it was a bomb and at one point told police to shoot him in front of his family.

Ms Coates said it was alleged the man told police the “bomb” had a 500 metre blast radius and the airport was evacuated and shutdown. He is accused of telling officers that he would not detonate the bomb if he could take his two children and fly to Egypt.

“Imagine the terror of this woman and her family … for him to turn up at the airport and behave like this in front of the two children,” the magistrate said.

Brisbane’s international airport terminal. Picture: Mark Calleja

“He pulled a knife, told them there was a bomb, then he wanted the police to shoot him, it’s an extraordinary system of facts for which everybody else on the planet other than him has been greatly inconvenienced at his own narcissism in wanting to either kill himself in front of his family.

“He was just happy to see if the police would take him out in front of his two children, it’s an extraordinary shall we say bizarre approach to one’s children and one’s family.”

Brisbane International Airport was evacuated Saturday, February 2. Picture: AAP/Steve Pohlner

Ms Coates said the affidavit filed as part of the bail application showed the man “obviously holds views that he has a right to behave like this to his family”.

“And there is nothing in his material that indicates that he would, given his objective, narcissistic behaviour in this conduct at the local international airport that he would feel compelled to comply with any reasonable (bail) conditions,” she said.

“I could not be satisfied that in the circumstances of his deliberate intent in relation to the events at the Brisbane airport that there would be any conditions that I could impose that would restrain his feeling of narcissistic self-entitlement.”

The man, who is facing a string of charges including two counts of making false statement to damage or destroy and two of making a bomb hoax, was refused bail and his case will be mentioned again next month.