Man who tried to bomb ex's house dies after explosive bounced back and hit him
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A man who plotted to kill his ex-girlfriend died when a bomb he threw in her home recoiled and exploded in his face.
Surapong Thongnak, 36, hatched his plan when Kanonraphat Saowakhon, 28, said she didn't want to reconcile with him in Surat Thani, southern Thailand.
Witnesses were drinking coffee when they said Surapong drove up to the property, before barging into the house and waking up Saowakhon, pleading for her to take him back.
After the chaos, he allegedly tried to stab her with a pair of scissors before running to his car to grab a grenade.
Once he threw it, the explosive hit a concrete pillar on the property and bounced back.
Surapong leaned down to pick up the grenade, when it exploded in his hands, instantly killing him and injuring four others on May 25.
Police arrived at the scene and found Surapong lying face down in a pool of blood, with debris and shrapnel scattered across the yard.
Four people, including his ex-girlfriend, Saowakhon, were wounded and rushed to a hospital where they were treated for minor injuries before being released.
Police Major Chinnakrit Sawatdiwong said: 'The injured individuals were taken to the Tha Chana Hospital. All of them have been discharged except for Samart Janyang, 68, who suffered more serious injuries. He has been transferred to the Surat Thani Hospital for further treatment.'
Surapong's mother, Ranjuan Timdee, 58, said the couple had only been dating for two months before breaking up.
She said: 'I was shocked to receive the news this morning that he had died. I couldn't believe he could be so violent.'
Police said they also seized half a kilo (1.1 lbs) of meth from Surapong's car.
Recent statistics found that the most dangerous time for a victim who has left a relationship to face violence is shortly after a breakup. More Trending
77% of domestic violence-related homicides happen after a separation, and for two years after, there is a 75% increase of violence in these situations, according to Battered Women.
Women's Aid exclusively shared that 72% of people underestimate the prevalence of domestic abuse, revealing a critical gap in public awareness around this urgent issue.
Nearly a quarter of us know a woman or girl who has been a victim of domestic abuse over the past year, an exclusive survey for Metro found previously.
A shocking 20% also confirmed they had seen or heard it happen in the same period. And 39% confirmed that they know a woman or girl victim of sexual harassment.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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The Courier
an hour ago
- The Courier
Bizarre claims of Perthshire tea blagger Thomas Robinson – bomb disposal, surviving deadly snake bites and inventing Bag for Life
It was not just the whirlwind success of Thomas Robinson's Scottish tea plantation that prosecutors found hard to swallow. There were many aspects of the 55-year-old's personal life and Forrest Gump-esque career that were difficult to believe – and even tougher to fact-check. 'I enjoy telling people that I was one of the inventors of the Bag For Life,' he said. 'They don't believe it. Then when they go away and Google it, they come back with a different impression of me.' Robinson, who was this week convicted of a £550k fake Scottish tea fraud, claimed he was part of a team of three people who produced the now ubiquitous shopping carrier for Waitrose in the late 1990s. There is no evidence to back up his claim. Investigators found no connection between the Bag for Life and Thomas Robinson. Or Thomas O'Brien. Or Tam O'Braan. So who is the man behind the Perthshire grown brew that was too good to be true? Taking the witness stand towards the end of his trial, Robinson was asked to declare his name. 'Thomas James O'Brien,' he said. Born Thomas Robinson in Greenwich, London in 1970, he said he went to an Irish primary school in County Down. But he later said by the age of eight he was educated in London. He said he achieved a qualification in food technology from a college in London's Elephant and Castle in the late 1980s. 'It was the same college where Charlie Chaplin and Michael Caine went,' he told jurors. Robinson denied he had ever told anyone he was a member of the British armed forces, but said he was part of the 'Irish Defence Force' for a year in the late 1990s. He served on the Irish border but also went to 'various overseas locations' to guard embassies. When pressed on how a London-born man with a UK passport would be in the Irish army, he told the court: 'One can have dual nationality.' Asked by fiscal depute Joanne Ritchie what kind of discharge he received from the army, Robinson replied: 'Regular.' He insisted he could not divulge any details of his army career. The court heard how he told Jamie Russell of the Wee Tea Company he saw a soldier die in combat. Robinson said his former business associate was confused and he had in fact told him he had seen a man in a Hearts top being killed in a road accident in Thailand. The court heard he had also bragged about being involved in bomb disposal operations and told others he was a military chef. 'You went as far as to make up these elaborate lies so you appeared to be a man of integrity,' Ms Ritchie told him. 'You wanted to appear as someone who people trust.' Around the same time he was supposedly in the army, he claimed to be studying plastics at the Athlone Institute of Technology in Ireland for 'a year and a bit'. Meanwhile, he was enjoying a career as a professional rugby player. He told the court he played 'to a high standard' at several clubs including Blackheath and Liverpool Stanley. He was so good at rugby, he even had a coaching career, he said. At some point, he also studied Gaelic in Kilkenny. But all evidence of his head-spinning achievements during the 1990s were lost in a flood, he said. All of his qualifications, rugby coaching certificates and paperwork from his army days are now a 'pile of mush' in a water-logged part of an outhouse in Dalreoch. Robinson then claimed to work in the flour and cereal industry, before moving into plastics, where he supposedly developed the Bag For Life. By April 2010 when he married partner Grace Wallace in their then-home city of Edinburgh, he had changed his name to Thomas O'Brien. During his tea plantation days he told people – including the press – his wife was a lawyer but in court he said she worked for the office of national statistics. Their marriage certificate reveals Robinson was a chemical engineer, also noting his father James Robinson was a colonel in the Royal Artillery. Asked how he got a job as a chemical engineer with no chemistry qualifications, he said he studied the subject at Napier University – but did not graduate. At some point, he somehow managed to live on a canoe in the Amazon for four years where he was bitten by a deadly spider, as he told Country Life in 2017. In November 2010, his company Thomas James Consultants Ltd – set up to protect his 'intellectual property' – received a £20,469 grant from the European Development Fund. The grant was to develop and test degradable plastics, which became crucial to his tea-growing business in Perthshire. Robinson became director of a company called EconVerte which carried out crop trials and experiments. He told the court his work secured him a contract with President Barrack Obama's administration to carry out maize trials in a dustbowl. Where was this contract now? The same bag of mush in his basement. He resigned from EconVerte in 2012, the year he moved with his family to Dalreoch Farm, Amulree. According to Companies House records, the Wee Tea Plantation was incorporated in August 2014. Sole shareholder Robinson said he had earlier travelled to the Himalayas to see for himself how to grow tea in harsh conditions. There, he was struck by the revelation that quality tea could be grown in Scotland. 'I spoke to an elder there and he said he had always wondered why we didn't do it in Scotland,' he said. 'We have the right conditions, the hills and the water.' He shared his idea with his friend Jamie Russell, who he had met at his Bread Street cafe in Edinburgh around 2008. Robinson told the trial he was a near-daily customer at the coffee shop and the pair bonded over their love of rugby. At the cafe, he also met Derek Walker, another regular customer, as well as Lindsay Deuchars who was an employee. Mr Russell and Mr Walker established the Wee Tea Company at an industrial unit in Dunfermline in 2012. A year or two later, Robinson made a pitch to the fledgling business owners. 'I told Jamie what I was doing,' he said. 'I told him I thought I had worked out how to grow tea in Scotland.' The trio gathered for a meeting in a freezing potting shed in Dalreoch, where Robinson explained his big secret – a 'unique' polymer sheeting that better retained moisture in the soil and prevented crops from being smothered by weeds. Robinson said the plastic sheeting allowed his plants to grow at a much faster rate than normal. He described the sheeting as 'known technology' but used in an innovative way, comparing himself to Steve Jobs inventing the iPhone. Prosecutors said it looked like a bin liner. His role, he said, was to attract larger retailers while supplying Mr Russell with wet tea leaves grown at Amulree. It was decided Robinson would became Tam O'Braan 'for press purposes'. He named himself after the river that runs through his plantation. The plan was to aim for the higher end of the tea market. While they claimed the Dorchester, Balmoral and Fortnum and Mason among their stockists, Robinson had further lofty targets including Harrods and the Savoy. One of the tricks he used to secure sales was to tell people his produce was a favourite of the Queen. When pressed on this, he said he had at some point received a call from a member of staff at Buckingham Palace who told him how much Her Majesty had enjoyed his tea while visiting the Dorchester. Robinson's Wee Tea Plantation was dissolved in October 2019, around the time the Food Standards Scotland probe was getting into full swing. Since, Robinson said he has worked for an environmental company in Birmingham and driven a school bus for Stagecoach during the Covid lockdown. He most recently secured a job as a senior chef at the plush Taymouth Castle, near Kenmore. He told jurors his job had been kept open for him after an industrial accident in 2023, which left him with cognitive and memory issues. When asked what happened, he said: 'I tripped over an electrical wire and fell into the basement of a castle.' Taymouth Castle declined to comment on the alleged incident, which is understood to have happened without witnesses and was not caught on CCTV. During his evidence, Robinson apologised for some unusual mannerisms such as taking deep breaths before reading printed words. 'I know it can look a bit strange,' he said. 'I'm better with pictures.' When the jury were out of the room, he appeared in discomfort or pain. Concerned, Sheriff Keith O'Mahony told Robinson he was welcome to sit and give his evidence, instead of stand. 'I just want to come across as normal as possible,' Robinson replied.
Metro
an hour ago
- Metro
Fare dodger tells staff he'll ‘get away with it' before not getting away with it
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A fare dodger told staff he 'would get away with it' minutes before realising he wouldn't. In a clip shown on Channel 5's Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law, the passenger, shown wearing a black jacket and hood, is questioned by a revenue inspection officer after taking a journey for which he hadn't paid. The man, in a blasé attitude, tells the inspector he won't be able to stop him dodging fares, saying 'he will get away with it'. When he was finally handed a fine, he told staff he 'couldn't give a toss' andsaid he would go to court. He was issued with a fine totalling £55.60. If not paid within 21 days, the charge nearly doubles to £105.60. The passenger argued with the officer named Sam at the ticket gates inside London Waterloo. He is asked: 'So you're just going to fare evade and try and get away with it – is that what you are saying?' 'I will get away it', the defiant passenger replies. The fare dodger is promptly advised that footage of him and the conversation has been taped on camera and will be sent over to British Transport Police. But he still attempted to goad the officer into letting him off, telling him: 'You might as well let me go, man.' When asked his name and address, he replied: 'I don't even know how to spell my name, I'll be honest.' He was then shown threatening to walk out and, despite being reminded that he was being recorded, he said: 'That doesn't bother me. 'I don't know why I'm standing here. I could just walk away to be honest.' Worried that the passenger would force his way out of the barriers, the inspector calls security officers. After realising his escape route had been cut off, the fare evader relented and handed over his personal details, allowing the inspector to verify his identity. But when he is finally handed a fixed penalty notice, he defiantly answers: 'I couldn't give a toss. 'I'm not paying that.' He later qualified: 'I'm not paying for transport.' The inspector further explained that failure to pay may result in a prosecution being pursued. 'Lovely. I love that', the fare dodger replied. Remaining defiant, he continued: 'I'm not keeping it, because I'm not paying it. I'll go to court.' TfL said it uses an intelligence-led approach with advanced tools like an Irregular Travel Analysis Platform (ITAP). It combs through ticketing and journey data, passengers' information, CCTV and travel patterns to spot fare evaders racking up the biggest bills. Around 3.4 per cent of passengers on TfL services travel without paying the correct fare. More Trending The transport authority spent almost £22 million on a fare dodging crackdown last year. The Channel 5 series previously showed another fare dodger being caught in the act after evading £3,500 in unpaid tickets. He was found having used a card with no money on it to repeatedly open station gates without having paid a penny in fares. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Businessman led family vigilante attack on nephew for 'bringing drugs into mansion' MORE: Judge 'leaks woman's photos in Telegram group for sex workers' MORE: Dog walker 'beaten to death by man living off-grid while being hunted by police'
South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- South Wales Argus
BBC to pay Gerry Adams 100,000 euros in defamation case
Mr Adams took the BBC to court over an episode of its Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, which he said defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of former Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement. A jury at the High Court in Dublin found in his favour on Friday after determining that was the meaning of words included in the programme and article. It also found the BBC's actions were not in good faith and the corporation had not acted in a fair and reasonable way. Mr Adams' legal team said the verdict of the jury was a 'full vindication' for their client while the BBC said it was 'disappointed' with the outcome. Mr Donaldson was shot dead in Co Donegal in 2006, months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent over 20 years. In the programme broadcast in September 2016, an anonymous source given the pseudonym Martin claimed the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Mr Adams gave 'the final say'. In 2009, the dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing and a Garda investigation into the matter remains ongoing. Mr Adams said the allegation was a 'grievous smear' while the BBC has described the legal action as a 'cynical attempt to launder his reputation'. The high-profile republican sought damages of at least 200,000 euro (£168,000) from the BBC. However, the British public service broadcaster had argued it would be a 'cruel joke' to award the former Sinn Fein president any damages. It had argued the allegation was corroborated by five other sources and that Mr Adams had a reputation of being a member of the IRA. Denis Donaldson was killed in 2006 (BBC/PA) After six hours and 49 minutes of deliberations in total, the jury awarded the plaintiff 100,000 euro – which falls within the 'medium' range for defamation. Speaking outside court, Mr Adams said taking this case was 'about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation'. He told reporters: 'I know many, many journalists. I like to think that I get on well with the most of them, and I wish you well, and I would uphold your right to do your job. 'But the British Broadcasting Corporation upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland, and in my view it's out of sync in many, many fronts with the Good Friday Agreement. 'It hasn't caught on to where we are on this island as part of the process, the continuing process, of building peace and justice, and harmony, and, hopefully, in the time ahead, unity.' He said there is an onus on everyone, including himself, to deal with these legacy issues. He said: 'I'm very mindful of the Donaldson family in the course of this long trial, and indeed of the victims' families who have had to watch all of this. 'I want to say that the Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan should meet the family of Denis Donaldson as quickly as possible, and that there's an onus on both governments and everyone else, and I include myself in this, to try and deal with these legacy issues as best that we can.' Gerry Adams outside the High Court in Dublin after the jury returned its verdict (Brian Lawless/PA) His solicitor Paul Tweed said Mr Adams was 'very pleased with this resounding verdict', adding the award of damages 'speaks for itself'. Johnsons Solicitors, who acted for Mr Adams, said: 'The outcome today has provided a full vindication for our client, Mr Adams.' Speaking outside court, Adam Smyth, director of BBC Northern Ireland, said: 'We are disappointed by this verdict. 'We believe we supplied extensive evidence to the court of the careful editorial processes and journalistic diligence applied to this programme, and to the accompanying online article. 'Moreover, it was accepted by the court and conceded by Gerry Adams' legal team that the Spotlight broadcast and publication were of the highest public interest. 'We didn't want to come to court but it was important that we defend our journalism and we stand by that decision.' He added: 'Our past is difficult terrain for any jury and we thank them for their diligence and careful consideration of the issues in this case. 'The implications of their decision, though, are profound. As our legal team made clear, if the BBC's case cannot be won under existing Irish defamation law, it is hard to see how anyone's could, and they warned how today's decision would hinder freedom of expression. Director of BBC Northern Ireland, Adam Smyth and journalist Jennifer O'Leary outside the High Court (Brian Lawless/PA) 'Of course, a case of this importance, duration and complexity involves significant expense. In common with other media organisations, the BBC has insurance and makes financial provision for ongoing and anticipated legal claims.' BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O'Leary said she had 'nothing to hide, only sources to protect'. She also thanked the BBC and its legal team for defending journalism. Ms O'Leary said: 'I'm a big believer in trying your best in life and going about your business with integrity, and I want to pay a particular tribute to our witnesses in court, senator Michael McDowell, Trevor Ringland, and in particular Ann Travers, who spoke so courageously.' She said there were thousands of victims and survivors of the troubles in the UK and Ireland, adding: 'Those people carry the burden of their grief and trauma with incredible dignity and courage, and they are the people I am thinking of, I know my colleagues are also thinking of. I am thinking of all of them today.' The BBC will have to pay costs but the amount has yet to be decided. Mr Smyth added the corporation will take some time to consider the implications of the ruling.
