Man sentenced after making hoax calls to HM Coastguard

A man has today (June 8) been sentenced after making false and malicious calls to HM Coastguard.

Leon Marandola, 20-years-old, has been ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work and given a two-year supervision order. A restriction of liberty order has also been imposed.

Marandola pleaded guilty to making 19 hoax calls during an earlier hearing at Elgin Sherriff Court. The hoax calls were made during a two-month period between June 17 and August 25 2019.

The hoax calls led to HM Coastguard sending out helicopters, Coastguard Rescue Officers and RNLI lifeboats to save lives when in fact no one was in any danger. The cost of these call outs has been estimated to be in the region of £170,000. This figure doesn’t account for the wages of volunteers that may have been lost due to call outs, the HM Coastguard operations room costs or the costs to any merchant or industrial ships that may have been diverted by HM Coastguard to assist in the searches.

But the true cost of Marandola’s actions could have been much worse than monetary and could have cost someone their life.

In May 2019 Marandola had joined the Buckie RNLI team as a volunteer.

Coastal Operations Area Commander Ross Greenhill said: “Hoax calls are taken extremely seriously as they tie up vital life-saving resources and risk taking them away from those who are actually in grave danger which could have serious consequences.

“As in this case, we will always work with the relevant authorities to fully investigate and seek a prosecution if we suspect hoax calls are being made.

“This case stands out because the offender is someone who wanted to work alongside emergency services to help people and prevent loss of life at sea. Each time he made a false report, he put the safety of his fellow volunteers at the RNLI and HM Coastguard at risk and let down his local community.

“We hope the sentencing today makes others think twice before making false calls to any of the emergency services. Putting the lives of members of the public and of emergency services colleagues at risk will never be tolerated.”

 


Popular posts from this blog

Label your kit at the coast

Image
Kayaks. Canoes. Paddleboards. What do they all have in common? They’re quite often found on the coastline or drifting out to sea. And if we don’t know who they belong to, we can spend time searching for an owner when they’re home safe and sound. So please help us to help you. Label your kit so that if you do get separated from it, and it turns up somewhere, we can get hold of you. In recent weeks, our Coastguard Rescue Teams have found numerous items such as kayaks and canoes drifting out at sea or abandoned near the shoreline. Unfortunately, some of the items we have found have not had their owners’ contact details written on them nor been reported as missing to the Coastguard. As a result, it makes it difficult for us to find out who it belongs to and also means we can never be completely sure if someone is safe or in the worst case, in trouble at sea. This can place a huge strain on our resources especially during the busy summer period when we have to call upon our Coastgua
Read more

A short history of HM Coastguard

Image
Today HM Coastguard is a world leader in maritime search and rescue. Looking back almost 200 years, the goods, which now travel by road, were carried by hundreds of small ships. Year in year out dozens of ships and hundreds of lives were lost within sight of the coast. Public shock and dismay at the tragedies drove forward the creation of national life saving organisations. Though it’s beginnings lie in those decades HM Coastguard originated not to meet the dangers of the seas but to combat a threat to the country’s economy and security – smuggling. As soon as medieval taxes were charged on imports and exports, people began smuggling. By 1743 th e estimate was that half the tea drunk in Britain was illegally imported and shows that smuggling was highly profitable. Smugglers have often been romanticised but the reality was brutal. Local people lived in fear, with violent reprisals on informers and the murder of revenue officers, while corruption enabled smugglers to evade harsh p
Read more

BOSCASTLE FLOODS: TEN YEARS ON

Image
Boscastle Flooding 16 th August 2004 The storms of Monday 16 August 2004 saw three weeks worth of rain fall in one day. The resulting water began to be funnelled down the valleys surrounding Boscastle and soon the steep roads became rivers. By the time that the water reached the picturesque village, it had picked up enough momentum to become a raging torrent, sweeping into buildings, washing cars away and felling huge trees. Graham King runs the Witches Museum in Boscastle and was also the station officer for the Boscastle Coastguard Rescue Team at the time of the floods: “ My museum is situated next to the harbour near the river ,” says Graham “ and I can see the coastguard equipment store from there. Initially I was concerned that the vehicle and equipment were going to become stranded but I soon began to realise how quickly the situation was deteriorating and called Falmouth Coastguard ” From that point on the villagers and tourists stranded in flood waters were he
Read more