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Geoffrey Martin Fryatt, a 57-year-old resident of the Fairways Golf and Lifestyle Retreat in Brisbane,
threatened to blow up half of the city of Brisbane with his television remote control he claimed was wired to detonate a store of chemicals.
Mr. Fryatt was arrested after terrifying his neighbors with a knife and his remote control as he shouted in a standoff with police last May,
"One push of the button will blow up half of Brisbane."
The local media reported that his attorney told the Brisbane District Court that Fryatt has lost much of his life savings in a fraud carried out by his finance broker and simply lost control.
The Brisbane District Court judge sentenced Geoffrey Fryatt to a year's probation, stating
"People are genuinely scared of sudden explosions. Frightening members of the public with threats of bombs and bomb hoaxes has a much greater impact than it once did."
The Brisbane Times newspaper reported that Fryatt was worried that his probation would jeopardize his plans to travel abroad to do humanitarian aid work, to which the judge replied
"Let's get you right before we send you off to a third world country."
