A MAN undergoing “emotional meltdown” after the break-up of a relationship created a home-made explosive which he threatened to detonate, a court heard.

Although he sent a picture of the unsophisticated device among a series of threatening messages to his former girlfriend, Brian Anton Riley claimed he made it intending to harm himself.

His worried “ex” reported it to police and armed response officers joined Army bomb disposal experts in searching his home, in Sacriston, near Chester-le-Street.

Durham Crown Court heard that the device recovered from the house in Fulforth Way was made up of a banger firework, lighter fuel, nails, screws and a craft knife blade, sealed together by tape.

Michael Graham, prosecuting, told the court: “It could cause injury or damage to property, but the overall effect would be unpredictable.”

Mr Graham said the background was the deterioration of the relationship between Riley, now 28, and his then 19-year-old girlfriend.

Although she moved in with him for several months, his behaviour changed, as he became moody, unpredictable and “possessive”.

She returned to live with her mother and tried to end the relationship.

But over the first weekend last November, Riley tried to remove his fearful former girlfriend from a bed at a friend’s house and, unsuccessfully tried to prevent her leaving with some of her possessions from his home.

Over the following few hours he sent her increasingly rambling messages, threatening to harm her, members of her family, her boss, as well as himself.

It culminated in the bomb threat, leading to police being informed.

Riley, who has been in custody since his arrest, admitted putting a person in fear of violence through harassment and making an explosive substance with intent to cause a fear of loss of life.

But, Tony Davis, mitigating, told the court it was on the basis the person Riley was threatening was himself.

Mr Davis said psychiatric reports indicated Riley, who suffered a troubled childhood, had a personality disorder.

“He can’t, and doesn’t seek to justify his behaviour, but it has to be seen within the framework of an emotional melt down in which he threatened to kill himself with this explosive device.

“He admits intending to scare others, but not to harm them.

“The intention was to harm or kill himself.

“There was no pre-meditation in making this device.

“Given the time of year, just before November 5, they were all items at hand slung together in unsophisticated fashion.”

Jailing him for three years and four months, Judge Robert Adams also imposed an unlimited restraining order forbidding Riley from contacting, or trying to contact his former girlfriend.