Anthrax hoaxer is spared jail

A businessman whose "strange sense of humour" triggered an anthrax alert was spared jail yesterday.

Harry Goldstein, a practical joker, thought he would have some fun by posting a friend "half a Smartie's worth" of salt at a time when fears of biological attacks gripped much of the world in October 2001.

But instead of "raising a chuckle", the prank backfired because the letter leaked its contents over a postman and forced more than 100 workers to leave Wembley sorting office, north-west London.

The 39-year-old Kosher butcher, who argued he could not have foreseen the consequences of what he intended as a "friendly, cheerful, side- slapping" joke, was convicted of causing a public nuisance. The salt was in a letter with a £6,600 cheque he owed a fellow businessman.

Yesterday, Mr Goldstein sobbed in the dock at Southwark Crown Court, London, when Judge Fingret decided not to jail him but gave him 140 hours of community service and ordered him to pay £1,850 in damages and £500 to the postman, Alan Owen.