ARMY explosive experts were called to Leigh Infirmary after a psychiatric patient made a home-made bomb.

The bomb, made out of a medicine bottle packed with chemicals, wired up to a battery to act as a detonator, was assembled by former RAF man and customs officer Donald Sorby, 38.

Sorby surrendered the device voluntarily to medical staff at the hospital, Bolton Crown Court was told.

He told them he had fantasised about using it to set fire to the home of the man his former partner had left him for, said Lisa Judge, prosecuting.

At the time of the incident Sorby was on bail on a charge of conspiracy to forge police warrant cards and NHS medical cards for a man named Whitfield.

Whitfield and his friends planned to pose as police officers to 'confiscate' pirate videos.

But Whitfield was arrested for armed robbery and the plan was uncovered.

Computer expert Sorby, of Elmsdale Avenue, Blackley, Manchester, pleaded guilty to possession of an incendiary device and conspiracy to produce forged documents.

His counsel, Christopher Daw, said Sorby had left the RAF with an exemplary record and had then been a customs officer for 12 years.

When his partner left him for another man he entered Leigh Infirmary as a psychiatric in-patient where he brooded about getting revenge.

Mr Daw said Sorby's psychiatrist was confident he was no longer a danger to the public and was fit to take his place in society again.

He said Sorby had served three months in custody and was needed at home to care for his elderly parents.

Judge David Hodson said that without the psychiatric report which stated that Sorby posed no danger to the public, he would have sent him to prison for a long time.

In the exceptional; circumstances, however, he suspended a sentence of two years imprisonment for two years and made a suspended sentence probation order for the same period.

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