Brick thrower jailed
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• A truck driver who admitted throwing bricks from a motorway bridge has been jailed for seven years.
Chester Crown Court heard Blacon, Cheshire tanker driver Anthony McIntyre would pick up bricks each day from a farm as he cycled to work across the M56 near Backford and drop them on to the motorway.
On 5 December 1996 lorry driver Malcolm Papps was passing under the bridge when a brick dropped by McIntyre smashed through his windscreen and hit his head. Papps crashed on the hard shoulder. He was taken to hospital and treated for a head injury and whiplash. The next morning, police officers who were lying in wait saw McIntyre drop another brick from the bridge which smashed through a car windscreen.
McIntyre initially claimed he had found the brick on the road and threw it at the motorway embankment as he thought it was dangerous. He later admitted to these and three other offences in November when bricks had hit car bonnets but did not injure the drivers.
Judge Elgan Edwards adjourned sentencing pending psychiatric reports.
"These are dreadfully serious offences," he said. "The potential consequences could have been quite awful."