Mardi Gra bomber jailed for 21 years.(News) - The Birmingham Post (England)

Mardi Gra bomber Edgar Pearce was jailed for a total of 224 years yesterday after targeting innocent people as he tried to extort money from businesses.

Old Bailey judge Mr Michael Hyam, the Recorder of London, ordered that the sentences should run concurrently and Pearce (61) would serve 21 years.

The court had been told that Pearce sent at least 36 home-made devices to staff and customers of Barclays Bank and Sainsbury supermarkets during his three-year campaign of terror and blackmail.

He delivered some of the devices by hand, left others in shopping bags and placed others near to where innocent people were passing.

Judge Hyam said it was only 'good fortune' that no one had been killed. Pearce had shown a 'cynical disregard' for the safety of members of the public.

He had caused fear and injury, including a serious leg injury to a man who had had to give up a promising athletics career.

Pearce, from Chiswick, west London, had pleaded guilty to 20 offences of blackmail, wounding, possessing firearms and causing an explosion.

Judge Hyam told him: 'Your motives were greed and an insatiable appetite for notoriety.'

Pearce, wearing a grey sweatshirt with a Calvin Klein emblem, sat motionless, staring at the judge as he handed out prison terms ranging from 21 years to one year.

The judge told Pearce: 'Your plan was to terrorise members of the public.

'From the start of your criminal activity, you made it clear that you intended to target staff and customers.'

The terror campaign against Sainsbury's had resulted in pounds 640,000 in lost trade.

'This is a measure of the fear your activities instilled into members of the public,' said the judge.

'These offences were undoubtedly so serious that only a very substantial custodial sentence can be justified.'

Pearce was captured in April, last year, when he fell into a police trap while trying to collect pounds 700 - the only money he received - from a bank cash machine.

Mrs Nadine Radford QC, defending, said Pearce claimed he was not motivated by money and had not intended to cause anyone injury.

He had had a successful career in advertising and then ran a restaurant. But he drank heavily - at one point confessing to drinking six bottles of wine a day.

In 1992 he suffered a stroke which caused brain damage and changed his personality - eventually leading to his criminal career, she said.

Mrs Radford asked for Pearce to be assessed under the Mental Health Act. She said part of Pearce's brain had been destroyed, reducing his life expectancy and his ability to understand the consequences of his actions.

Neuro-psychiatrist Dr Peter Fenwick told the court that Pearce would be better off 'being treated as a patient than a prisoner' and could be seen as a 'deviant' by fellow prisoners.

The judge ruled that the Home Secretary had the power to order appropriate medical treatment if his condition deteriorated in jail.

After the hearing, Det Chief Supt Jeff Rees said: 'This should be a deterrent to anyone considering extortion and blackmail.'

Mr Keith Bray, who received one of the Mardi Gra's devices at his electrical shop in Whitton, west London, in September 1995, said: 'I would rather have seen him go down and not come out again.'