A Slough man who called 999 twice and threatened to blow up a police station before being racially abusive has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Ranjit Dhaliwal, 38, of Ledgers Road, called the emergency services twice on Sunday, May 15, at around 6.15am and threatened to blow up a house and shoot police officers.

He also threatened to blow up a police station and was verbally and racially abusive to members of police staff answering the calls.

He was arrested on May 28 and charged with one count of sending by public communication network an offence/indecent/obscene or menacing message on October 14.

He appeared at Slough Magistrates' Court on November 12 and pleaded guilty to sending abusive messages.

He returned to court on Friday, December 6, and was given an eight-week prison sentence, suspended for six months.

Investigating officer PC Nick Macchia of Thames Valley Police’s Force Intelligence and Specialist Operations unit, said: “The calls made by Dhaliwal were highly inappropriate and threatening in nature.

“Not only did he take up the valuable time of emergency call handlers, thus meaning they were unable to answer genuine 999 calls, the nature of his language and the threats made were completely unacceptable.

“Dhaliwal’s behaviour that morning was totally wrong and wasting the time of emergency call handlers could have had the consequence of a genuine emergency not being answered, causing possible danger to other members of the public.

“We will not tolerate anybody making inappropriate calls, and will also bring offenders to justice who verbally abuse our call handling staff, who are there to help people who are in genuine need of the police.

“I am pleased that Dhaliwal took responsibility for his actions and has now been sentenced accordingly.”