Exclusive:Judge slams 'avalanche of lies' by man, 49, whose bomb hoax brought Sheffield to standstill for 36 hours
A judge branded Younis’ claims that MI5 were trying to assassinate him as “utter nonsense”
A man who brought Sheffield to a standstill by claiming he would blow up his flat block was jailed today.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes on Broad Street in February 2025 after Yaqub Younis, aged 49, told neighbours he would “pop” the building using “20kg of explosives.”
It led to a colossal police siege of The Gateway flat block, during which the nearby Park Square Roundabout - one of the busiest routes in Sheffield - was shut for 36 hours.
Throughout the siege - which began at 7pm on February 10 - Younis screamed at police negotiators that they were all “assassins from MI5,” and that the bomb hoax was necessary to draw the public’s attention and save his life.
At his trial in May 2026, Younis attempted to convince a jury he did not deserve prison because he sincerely believed MI5 was trying to kill him.
Instead, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on all counts in just two hours.
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The Recorder of Sheffield, His Honour Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, called Younis’ claims “an avalanche of falsehoods” and “complete and utter nonsense.”
“There is a fixation in your mind that there was some sort of state sponsored conspiracy or revenge against you,” said the judge,
“That is complete fiction. There is not a shred of evidence that was the case.
“The jury saw through your lava flow of lies.”
There were no explosives in the flat, and the “machine gun” he claimed he would fire from his balcony turned out to be a plastic tube wrapped in a towel.
Nevertheless, hundreds were evacuated from The Gateway block of flats and at least 80 people were forced to sleep at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre.
Meanwhile, the Park Square Roundabout - which, according to a 2019 survey, sees over 40,000 vehicles a day - was shut to all traffic, trams and pedestrians in all directions for over 36 hours, bringing Sheffield to a standstill.
The siege only ended when a police officer outside Younis’ door pretended he needed the toilet and asked the 49-year-old if he could enter.
The police operation cost the public purse £195,000 with ramifications for hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens, services and businesses. The judge called the total cost of the siege “incalculable.”
In addition, Younis was a wanted man at the time, and had been on the run after being recalled to prison over two years earlier.
This was because he breached his licence conditions after being jailed for conspiracy to commit GBH, over his involvement in an incident in 2010 when a man was shot in the leg with a sawn-off shotgun in Stoke.
Younis was sentenced to seven years for communicating a bomb hoax, affray and public nuisance, as well as causing £17,000 in damages to his rented flat.
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