A BOMB scare was sparked after a package marked 'only open if you are expert in the Quran' was left in a church, reports the Guardian Series.

Police were called to SS Peter and St Paul's Church, in The Green, Chingford, at 9.10pm on Monday night.

The medium sized package was marked: 'Please do not read unless you are an expert on the Quran. Very seriously dangerous. Please.'

The Metropolitan Police were called and found the package, left on the doorstep of the church, to be a bible wrapped inside a white tea towel. The package was found at a Zumba class held at the church every week.

Jessica Worth, who was taking part, took photos and alerted the police.

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A JUDGE launched a scathing attack on a homeowner who made his neighbours’ lives a ‘nightmare’ by playing loud recordings of monkey and chicken noises to wake them in the early hours, the Daily Echo reports.

Ian Wheatcroft, 44, subjected his neighbours to a campaign of harassment for more than two years, recording them using CCTV cameras and putting dog faeces in their garden.

Wheatcroft set off alarms and played loud animal noises in the early hours to wake Clive and Alice Jones, who lived in the neighbouring £300k semi-detached house.

Cruise firm director Mr Jones and his wife, who shared a drive with Wheatcroft outside their homes in Totton, felt they couldn’t use their garden as his cameras were pointed at it.

Wheatcroft also deliberately used an angle grinder just inches from Mr Jones’ car and, when they were forced to give up their cat, he taunted them by putting up a poster of a cartoon cat with its middle finger up.

At Southampton Magistrates’ Court District Judge Anthony Callaway launched an attack on Wheatcroft, who denied harassment but was convicted after a four-day trial.

He told Wheatcroft he was a ‘well-practised liar’ who was ‘staggeringly arrogant’.

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THE boss of Merlin Entertainments ignored reporters’ questions about resignation after the company was fined £5million over the Alton Towers rollercoaster disaster.

The Bournemouth Echo reported that chief executive Nick Varney repeated his apology for the crash on the Smiler ride in June last year.

Merlin Attractions had admitted health and safety breaches.

The judge in the case said the company’s safety failure had been “putting at risk the safety of thousands of young people and children”.

Two teenagers - Vicky Balch, then 19, and Leah Washington, then 17 - each lost a leg in the collision in June last year which "changed the lives of some of those injured in the most dramatic way", according to a judge.

Stafford Crown Court heard that the victims had watched with "disbelief and horror" before ploughing into an empty carriage on the track, with the impact likened by the prosecution to a 90mph car crash.

The company, which is based in Poole, was fined after the court heard that an engineer "felt pressure" to get Smiler back into service after it developed a fault shortly before the devastating crash.

An expert witness report, compiled by consultant Stephen Flanagan, also said Alton Towers management linked bonuses to "acceptably low levels of downtime" on their rollercoasters.

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Judge Michael Chambers QC called the accident a "catastrophic failure" by the company involving basic health and safety measures.