A MAN who was jailed for keeping a homemade pipe bomb under his bed, at his house in the grounds of a girls’ school, is free after appeal judges quashed his jail term.

In January, “Bedroom Rambo”

David Riding, 21, of Lake View, Wingate, County Durham, was convicted of making an explosive substance and sentenced to a year in prison.

Yesterday, appeal judges ruled that the time he has already served behind bars was enough punishment and reduced his sentence to a level that will allow him to be released.

The judges, Lord Justice Hughes, Mr Justice King and Judge David Radford, sitting at the Criminal Appeal Court, in London, upheld the jury’s verdict.

Riding, who worked in a hardware store and whose parents worked at the school, admitted making the 6in pipe bomb.

He said he had made it out of innocent curiosity, using an internet guide to see if he could do it. He said he never intended to detonate it. Afterwards, he scrawled the word “killer” on the side.

Alongside the device, police found two replica handguns, three “substantial” knives and a homemade knuckle-duster, all locked in a safe under his bed, in the grounds of Durham High School for Girls, in Durham City.

Yesterday, his lawyers argued that he should never have been convicted of the offence, arguing that the trial judge was wrong to decide that his curiosity was not a lawful reason for making and keeping the bomb.

They also said that because he had never intended to use the device for an unlawful purpose, he should have been given a community sentence.

After rejecting the arguments about the jury’s verdict, Lord Justice Hughes allowed Riding’s appeal against the length of his prison term, cutting it to eight months.

He said: “We take the view that, certainly in current times, the possession of a homemade bomb of this kind does require the imposition of a custodial sentence, even in a young man of otherwise good character.

“On the other hand, we are quite satisfied that it is a case in which the fact of imprisonment is, in principle, an important punishment.

“This man has now served approximately four months in prison. It will undoubtedly have been a chastening and salutary experience for him.

“The time he has served is enough.”