Vic: Bomb hoaxer loses bid for freedom
By Stuart Walsh
MELBOURNE, April 8 AAP - A teenager accused of threatening to detonate a bomb in ahospital maternity ward was today denied bail.
Justice Rosemary Balmford said in the Supreme Court she believed there was an unacceptablerisk that the 19-year-old could, if he became emotionally disturbed, behave in a similarlyviolent way.
The court heard that William Scorse took a woman hostage at knifepoint in the maternitysection of Rosebud Hospital, on the Mornington Peninsula south-east of Melbourne, on January20, claiming to have a bomb strapped to his body.
He threatened to detonate the device -- later found to be a dummy - unless nursingstaff located a doctor he believed responsible for his partner's miscarriage two yearsearlier.
The court was told that on the day of the incident -- the second anniversary of themiscarriage -- Scorse had taken prescription drugs for depression and also had drunk alarge quantity of port.
Barrister Jeremy Rapke, QC, for the Office of Public Prosecutions, said Scorse latertold police he blamed the doctor for the loss of the child and wanted revenge.
He said Scorse had demonstrated "an unmitigated hatred" towards the doctor and hadthreatened to kill him.
The court has heard that two women patients, one of them still in labour, the othernursing her four-day-old child, were transferred to the hospital's front lawn as the stand-offcontinued inside.
Scorse let off a fire extinguisher before surrendering to the police.
Scorse's barrister, Bruce Nibbs, said that his client claimed that the woman threatenedwith the knife had in fact been an accomplice.
He said that according to a psychiatric report, Scorse no longer blamed the doctorfor the loss of the child.
Scorse had been in a state of emotional stress at the time, but as a result of treatmentwhile in custody his condition had stabilised, Mr Nibbs said.
Scorse is charged with making a bomb hoax, false imprisonment and assault with a weapon.
He is being held in Port Phillip Prison and is due to appear before the magistrate'scourt again on April 22.
AAP sew/dk/cd/sp
KEYWORD: SCORSE NIGHTLEAD
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