Couple Who Sold Bogus Bomb Detectors They Claimed Could Find Madeleine McCann Face Jail

Couple Who Sold Bogus Bomb Detectors They Claimed Could Find Madeleine McCann Face Jail

PA   |   [Press Association]
Posted: 01/08/2014 19:54 BST Updated: 01/08/2014 19:59 BST


A couple face jail after being found guilty of making bogus bomb detectors in their garden shed which they said could find missing Madeleine McCann. Husband and wife Samuel and Joan Tree made "outlandish claims" that the dud devices could track down explosives and drugs.

But the detectors, known as Alpha 6 and marketed through their company Keygrove, were just plastic boxes with an antenna strapped on to them and bits of torn-up paper inside. They cost just a few pounds to make, but were sold for as much as 2,000 US dollars (£1,171). The Trees are understood to have raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds after making up to 1,500 of the devices in the back garden of their semi-detached home.

One of the boxes was found to have a photograph of missing Madeleine cut into pieces inside. They were both found guilty at the Old Bailey today of making an article for use in a fraud between January 2007 and July 2012.

Mr Tree, 67, bowed his head in the dock as the jury's verdict, by a majority of 11 to one, was delivered. His 62-year-old wife was found guilty by a majority of 10 to two. Judge Richard Marks QC gave the pair bail ahead of sentencing but warned them: "You must understand that all options are open to the court and the strong likelihood given the offence of which you have been found guilty is a custodial sentence." Mr Tree claimed it was possible to find people by putting a photo in the box.

He said he had used the method to look for Madeleine and two other children who vanished in Norfolk some years ago. Prosecutor Sarah Whitehouse QC told the Old Bailey: "They claimed that this Alpha 6 was capable of detecting the presence of drugs and explosives and other substances and objects. They even claimed on one occasion that it is capable of finding particular people, most notably Madeleine McCann.

"These claims were all false. The device was nothing more than a plastic box with an antenna stuck on the top and some pieces of paper inside. It cost a few pounds to make and yet was sold to agents and suppliers for hundreds and sometimes thousands of times that amount. Despite the fact that these plastic boxes plainly could not work, people did, astonishingly, buy them."

They claimed the Alpha 6 could detect substances as small as 15 billionths of a gram at a range of up to 500 metres and was powered by nothing more than static electricity from the user's body. The prosecutor said: "The impression given is one of sophistication and effectiveness based upon scientific principles. The reality was that Samuel and Joan Tree were assembling the devices in the garden of their semi-detached house in Dunstable with plastic boxes made in China and glue and bits of paper."

She said Mr Tree was a "very talented salesman" who believed he had the ability to "pull the wool" over the eyes of his customers. The Trees are the latest in a string of British con artists convicted for making phoney bomb detectors. Gary Bolton, of Redshank Road in Chatham, Kent, was jailed last August for seven years for selling more than 1,000 "useless" detectors which he claimed could track down bombs, drugs, ivory and money.