A MAN caused huge traffic disruption and racked up a £300,000 bill by threatening to jump from a bridge on the M62 at Brighouse, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Dean Adams, 51, closed the road in both directions between Junction 25 and Junction 26 at Bradford, delaying eastbound traffic by 42 minutes and westbound vehicles for an hour.

Adams, who claimed to be protesting about police corruption, caused 11 highway cars to be deployed after police shut the motorway in the early hours of October 4 last year, prosecutor Heather Gilmore said.

Adams, of Keldregate, Huddersfield, pleaded guilty to the offence of causing a public nuisance by sitting on the motorway which resulted in multiple road closures and traffic issues across West Yorkshire.

He was coaxed down by the police and said his head had been in a mess for the past six years. He had nothing to live for and his concerns were haunting him.

The court heard that he had limited previous convictions but had served a prison sentence for fraud.

Miss Gilmore said the offence of causing a public nuisance only came into force recently. The maximum sentence was ten years’ imprisonment. Similar cases included a man supergluing himself to an aeroplane.

In mitigation, Michael Sayers said that Adams’ declarations of police corruption were deeply held. He suffered trauma in his adolescence and felt he had been done great injury.

His mental illness was ‘a useful explanatory perspective’ for his actions that day. It was an honest expression of his distress. He was acting out of desperation.

Judge Jonathan Rose then asked: “How did he think that behaving in the way that he did, and causing the harm he caused, was going to help his situation in any way?”

Mr Sayers said Adams was engaging with a trauma therapy team and had sought help from his GP.

Judge Rose, who had read probation and psychiatric reports, said he had no reason to doubt that events in Adams’ earlier life had caused him great distress. It was accepted by the court that he suffered with PTSD or a personality disorder.

But he had been to prison in the past so he was familiar with how his actions impacted on other people.

On October 4 last year, he caused ‘massive inconvenience to a great number of people’ by threatening to jump off the bridge.

There was ‘harm and disruption,’ Judge Rose said. People had suffered and been inconvenienced.

He told Adams not to think only of himself but of other people.

“However bitter you may feel towards the police and the prison service, behaviour like this doesn’t improve the situation,” the judge told him.

Adams was sentenced to a two-year community order with up to 50 rehabilitation activity days and a supervision requirement.

Judge Rose reserved any breaches to himself, warning him that he faced a prison sentence if he behaved in a similar way again.