A Chatham man has been convicted of sending a fake bomb to a Covid vaccine factory.

The verdict was returned in the absence of Anthony Collins, 54 who refused to come to Maidstone Crown Court after an incident on a prison bus on Wednesday.

Now we can reveal how the convicted paedophile was convicted in 2017 of stalking BBC Radio presenter Sara Cox.

Collins admitted harassment and sent letters to Cox and told her he was psychologically disturbed and had a criminal past but wanted her to invite him to the BBC.

When police arrested him, they found he had a fake BBC visitor's pass, Cox's sister's work address, and indecent images of girls aged four to 15.

Collins, who then lived in Afghan Road, was jailed for 16 months after a judge told him that he had "an obsessive personality".

Maidstone Crown Court heard how he sent the package to the Wrexham based Wockhardt who manufacture the Covid vaccine.

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He included newspaper articles and told officers that in 1984 when PC Yvonne Fletcher was murdered outside the Libyan Embassy he wrote to encourage the chief constable to reopen the investigation and bring her killer – "that evil *******" – to justice.

Collins, now of Chatham Hill, Chatham, was convicted of one count of posting an article with the intention of inducing the belief it is likely to explode or ignite contrary to a 1977 Act.

The judge heard how he refused to travel to the court today after claiming he received insults on a bus taking inmates to and from Elmley Prison.

He will now be sentenced on November 24.

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