HOAX caller Mark Stevens has been jailed for telling police there was a bomb in a shopping centre previously targeted by a real terrorist.

Stevens, 34, of Greystone Court, South Molton, was sent to prison for 14 months for claiming there was an explosive device in Princesshay, Exeter.

He claimed it was in the same area targeted in a failed attack by Nicky Reilly, who attempted to detonate a homemade bomb in May, 2008.

Stevens pleaded guilty to communicating false information to British Transport Police on December 28 last year.

The court heard he rang the BTP control room and said: "Good evening, there's a bomb in Princesshay. It could be in a shop or on the outside. You've got two hours to get it, OK."

Judge Philip Wassall, sentencing Stevens, referring to the London bombings on July 7, 2005, said: "This is an incredibly serious offence, in modern times, given what happened on July 7, three or four years ago, when terrorist threats became a feature of life in the UK.

"When someone makes a fake call, it attacks the whole fabric of the society we live in."

Prosecutor James Taghdissian told Exeter Crown Court Stevens called the BTP control room in Birmingham at 6.40pm. He said two policemen then went to the shopping centre, recognised the defendant and arrested him. In 1994 Stevens was given a hospital order after making a hoax call to police about a bomb in Plymouth.

Jonathan Barnes said his client had stopped taking his medication for psychiatric problems when he made his latest hoax call.