A TEENAGE drag queen who caused havoc with a Swindon bomb hoax call made similar threats to a Virgin Atlantic flight, a court heard.

Joel Broad, 19, was said to have psychological problems stemming from childhood, Swindon Crown Court, was told.

Despite that, a judge ordered he serve 14 months in a young offenders’ institution, after pleading guilty to making the hoax call.

A psychological report produced ahead of his sentencing suggested that Broad committed the offence against WHSmith’s distribution centre at Greenbridge because he wanted other people to experience the humiliation he claimed he had suffered.

The court heard that on September 1 last year Broad – who is also known as drag queen Tammy Tampax and who regularly performs in pubs in Swindon and Oxfordshire – made two calls to the WHSmith switchboard saying there was a bomb in the customer services’ department.

Two hundred staff were evacuated staff and police closed off surrounding roads for several hours while they investigated, the prosecution said.

Broad, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, was an employee in the customer services division at WHSmith and also worked at Gatwick Airport at the time of the July 2005 terror attacks on London, the court heard.

Having left WHSmith at the end of his contract, Nicola Jennings, prosecuting, said it was suggested that Broad had had a dispute with a female employee.

The court also heard that Broad left a bomb hoax in a prayer book in an Oxford church in September 2005, following a failed job application to Virgin Atlantic.

Miss Jennings said the note read: “Please don’t pray for the people that will be killed in the October 18, 2005, bombing on a Virgin flight arriving in Barbados – you have been warned.”

Rob Ross, mitigating, said his client suffered difficulties in childhood and referred to a psychological report as an indication of his mental state.

“I find the comments the doctor made enlightening,” he said.

“The fact that one would do this, in her words, in order to reduce others to the emotional state of powerlessness, following the humiliation of being duped – making others feel that way he has felt about himself so long.

“Joel Broad presents as a young man who is pretty desperate to sort himself out.

“I think he was on the road to sorting himself until this offence.”

Judge William Hart said he considered the defendant’s early plea and remorse but said he would be failing in his public duty to impose anything less than a custodial sentence. He said: “You know the likely effect of bomb hoaxes.

“This is because you had been employed at Gatwick Airport at the time of the July bombings in London and you had seen the realities of real bombing so you had a real idea of the effect of a hoax bomb threat in the climate that we live in.”

Broad was sentenced to 14 months in a young offenders’ institution.