Four bomb threats - man pleads guilty

Former volunteer firefighter Bradley Taylor leaves the Hamilton District Court with his mother after admitting responsibility for four bomb hoax incidents in Hamilton last year. Photo / Belinda Feek

A council worker and volunteer firefighter has admitted sparking four bomb threats after placing suspicious packages in two Hamilton parks.

Bradley David Taylor, 27, today also admitted a charge of theft of fire equipment from the Ngaruawahia Fire Brigade valued at $6,000 when he appeared before Judge Philip Connell in the Hamilton District Court.

The charges relate to four separate incidents in June last year.

Three packages were placed in Gower Park while a fourth was left in Melville Park.

The bomb hoaxes resulted in the NZ Defence Force bomb squad being sent to the city on four separate occasions, causing a large amount of disruption to the south end of the city, in and around Bader and Melville, which is also near Waikato Hospital.

At the time, Taylor also worked for Hamilton City Council as groundsman for the park.

The 28-year-old also admitted a charge of theft of approximately $6000 worth of Ngaruawahia Fire Brigade property between April 1, 2012 and July 1, 2015.

Taylor began as a volunteer firefighter at the brigade sometime in April 2012 around the time he's alleged to have begun stealing the 25 items which included gloves, hoses, BA masks, boots, jackets, firefighter helmets, radio handset, recruit training overalls and a splash suit.

The items were returned to the brigade on the day of the search of an unrelated matter on July 1, 2015.

He was convicted and remanded for sentencing on October 3.

Waikato fire area commander Roy Breeze was pleased to hear Taylor had admitted the theft which he'd labelled a "big breach of trust".

"I'm glad he's owned up to it and pleaded guilty and we can all put it behind us now and move on. It was definitely a big breach of trust. We have a high level of trust with our volunteers and it's knocked us all but at least now we've got some closure to the whole thing."