A FORMER soldier whose home was a bomb-making factory was jailed for four years yesterday.

Michael Pennock was a corporal who worked on illegitimate explosive devices when he served in Northern Ireland and the Falklands.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Pennock claimed to be just "messing about" with rockets armed with scalpel blades, a coffee jar filled with high incendiary explosive, a pressure pad which could blow up the victim, and a box of 54 explosive fuses, found at his flat in Starbeck Walk, Thornaby, Teesside.

Police called in the Army Bomb Squad from Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, after a drugs raid on his home.

Stephen Ashurst, prosecuting, said that Pennock, 33, who left the Army in 1997, admitted that he built the scalpel bomb. "Asked what use did they have in Thornaby, he told the police that the purpose of making them was merely experimentation," said Mr Ashurst.

"Pennock said there was no malicious intent behind having the 'stuff', as he put it.

"The Crown accept the account given by the defendant that he did not make these devices with any subsequent intent to cause harm to other people."

Nigel Soppitt, defending, said Pennock had no plans to use the bombs. He said: "He had a great deal of paraphernalia left from when he was in the Army.

"He became too familiar with the paraphernalia and he had no idea of the consternation that would be caused by its discovery, and he realises there is a potential danger in keeping it."

The court heard that Pennock told police he became depressed after leaving the Army and he began using cocaine. He ran up a £1,500 debt with a dealer and he agreed to sell drugs to pay it off.

The judge made an order for the confiscation and destruction of the drugs and explosive devices, and the seizure of £1,000 which Pennock said he borrowed to pay the dealer.

Pennock pleaded guilty to making and possessing explosive substances on August 2 last year, possession of cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis resin with intent to supply them, and possession of Ecstasy.