Bomb hoax teenager ‘in good spirits’ after ordeal in Sydney

Madeleine Pulver freed unhurt after 10 hours strapped to fake bomb in case prime minister said was ‘like a Hollywood script’ The parents of an Australian teenager who was trapped for about 10 hours with what turned out to be a fake bomb strapped round her neck said she was “a little tired, a little sore” after her ordeal in the wealthy Sydney suburb of Mosman. Madeleine Pulver, 18, was freed unhurt from the device late on Wednesday by bomb squad specialists. Police later said there had been no explosive, but confirmed that there was a note making demands. Det Supt Luke Moore, of New South Wales police would not reveal the note’s contents, but said: “We are treating this as an attempted extortion, a very serious attempted extortion.” As police launched a manhunt for a masked man said to have broken in to the family home, Madeleine’s father Bill Pulver, a wealthy business executive, fought back tears as he talked about his daughter’s horrifying ordeal. “We as parents are extraordinarily proud of Maddy,” he said, his wife Belinda at his side. “I think she has woken up this morning in pretty good spirits. She’s a little tired, a little sore, from holding this damned device in place for about 10 hours.” Pulver said his daughter was “incredibly grateful” to officers who spent hours with her “showing little regard for their own personal safety”. The drama began on Wednesday afternoon when the family contacted police saying Madeleine had been attacked and a strange device attached to her. Nearby homes were evacuated and streets cleared. The teenager told police a man wearing a mask broke into her home and confronted her while she was in the kitchen. The man forced her to stay still while he fitted the device to her neck, before fleeing the house. Moore said they had not identified a prime suspect and were trying to establish how the man got into the house. “We are treating this as an individual incident,” Moore said. “We have absolutely no information to suggest this is linked to any other crime.” New South Wales police’s assistant commissioner, Mark Murdoch, said the device was sophisticated and was designed to look like a bomb as part of a “very, very elaborate hoax”. Australia’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, said she was shocked when she heard about the case. “When I looked at it this morning, the first thing I said was, ‘It’s like a Hollywood script – the kind of thing you would see at the cinema or on TV’,” she told Fairfax Radio. Australia James Meikle guardian.co.uk

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