A homeless man has been jailed for 16 months after making up a bomb hoax at Truro Cathedral in a bid to get more customers to go to the kebab shop he worked at.

Anthony Michael Moroncini, who listed his address in court as the St Petroc's Society in Truro when initially appearing before magistrates last month, pleaded guilty to multiple offences including a bomb hoax, burglary, three counts of theft, four counts of criminal damage, two assaults, and using threatening, insulting or abusive words or behaviour.

The 52-year-old was back before the courts again this week, after magistrates ordered that the sentence be given by Truro Crown Court, which has more power.

Moroncini was sentenced to 16 months in prison by Judge Simon Carr.

It was on September 13 this year that Moroncini contacted Cornwall Fire And Rescue Service to say that he believed there was a bomb inside Truro Cathedral – something he knew to be false when he made the call from a telephone box near the cathedral.

As a result of it, however, a huge emergency response was launched including armed police officers, sniffer dogs and a bomb disposal unit.

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Moroncini was said in court to have "significant" mental health difficulties and had not though about the impact on emergency services and the members of public involved.

The BBC reported that Holly Rust, defending, said: "He was helping out at the kebab shop for food and the whole idea was to increase footfall when the cathedral was evacuated."

Prosecutor Ali Rafati said Moroncini had committed 93 offences since 1994, mostly for dishonesty and violence.

On the same date of the bomb hoax he destroyed two panes of glass and a hand sanitiser dispenser, estimated to be worth a combined £500 to £1,000, at Truro's JobCentre, and also assaulted two men in the city.

In a string of offences that day, he also stole a barbecue and antifreeze or screenwash from Truro's Shell Garage.

Just a week earlier, on September 4, he had stolen two bottles of wine and a number of coffee cups from the same Shell Garage, where he also damaged a Covid protection screen.

He also destroyed a pair of windscreen wipers on a vehicle belonging to a man that he went on to use threatening, abusive or insulting words and behaviour against.

And again on the same day, he damaged flowers in three plant pots at the Mockingbird Restuarant in Truro.

It was the same restaurant where he had stolen a frozen cake worth £22.50, at an unknown time between September 1 and September 11.

Moroncini's other crimes included breaking into a house in Albert Place, Truro with the intention to steal property, between September 11 and 12.