Dunedin Airport Bomb Hoax – Calligraphy Expert Believes Security Staff Member Wrote Note

A note attached to a fake bomb left at Dunedin airport was written by the security staff member at the trial, says a forensic expert.

It was one of 20 circumstantial evidence that Crown Prosecutor Richard Smith said proved the guilt of Preetam Prakash Maid, 32, who has been in the dock in Dunedin District Court for more than two weeks.

But defense attorney Deborah Henderson argued that there were many others who had the opportunity to commit the crime.

While the police handwriting expert told the jury last week that it was impossible to definitively say that the defendant had written a cryptic note attached to the explosive device, she believed it was his.

Smith, during his closing speech yesterday, compared the note – which read “A: Alpha, B: Birds, C: Shock, D: Dunedin, E: Emergency, F: Fools” – with examples of Maid’s handwriting.

He pointed to the R “like a fish”, the U “like a horseshoe”, the M with “a subtle hook” and the S with “unusual balance.”

Henderson noted, however, that Maid had been the only staff member whose handwriting was evaluated.

Crown’s case is that Maid planted the bomb during her perimeter patrol as an aviation security officer on March 17 last year, just two days after the Christchurch mosque attacks, to further her agenda of increased security in the airport.

Smith said it would have had an associated benefit.

“I would get more work, more hours and more pay,” he said. “Young man, young family, baby on the way.”

Half an hour after returning home from her shift on the day of the incident, the court heard that Maid had contacted five media outlets to highlight the security breach.

Henderson called the point “a red herring” and urged the jury to focus on the identity of the hoaxer.

The police’s first thought, he said, was that someone had jumped a fence and placed the bag next to the cabin.

That day there had been reports of cars parked nearby and a “scruffy” man had been seen walking around the facility.

None of them were found by the police.

At the beginning of the trial, the court heard a witness who spoke with the accused the following day.

Maid said she had had trouble sleeping the night before because of “what was in that damn bag.”

Smith told the jury that at the time, the defendant would have had no idea what was in the bag, unless he had placed it.

But that was questioned by Henderson, who said his client had been told at the time.

The contents of the laptop bag that was found next to a small building beyond the north end of the runway pointed to Maid as the culprit, Smith said.

A Soda Stream butane can, a cell phone, a battery, cables and bubble wrap can be traced to the dangerous goods store the defendant had access to.

Magnetic card registrations also put him in that corridor for two 10-minute periods that day.

In a couple of months before that, Smith said, Maid had only been to that area twice, and fleetingly at that.

CCTV captured Maid taking a tape from a reception area and then returning it.

The Crown said he was the one setting up the fake bomb, but Henderson said he had actually been fixing a fish tank in the security office block.

Smith accepted that it had been an information-dense essay, generating 1,000 pages of transcription.

However, he simplified it as a “detective story” and urged jurors to use their common sense.

“Like a jigsaw, you will start to see the developed image,” he said.

Judge Michael Crosbie was due to summarize the case this morning before the eight women and three men on the jury deliberated.

The charge under the Aviation Crimes Act carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.