A TEENAGER accused of making a bomb hoax days after terrorist attacks at the Manchester Arena has told a court that a friend used his phone to make the ‘prank call’.

Liam ‘Reece’ Watts, from Latchford, is currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of falsely reporting a bomb hoax near to the town centre in May.

The Verve on Mersey Street was evacuated after a phone call was received from a man purporting to be a police officer, who told a security guard that a bomb had been left in the building shortly before 10pm on Tuesday, May 30.

Police and Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene, with Mersey Street shut while the emergency services carried out a search of the property.

While the phone call was made from Watts’ phone, the 18-year-old denies that it was made by himself.

The court heard that Watts, of Grange Avenue, and Lewis Nash were in the latter’s room at his youth housing on Old Liverpool Road, Sankey Bridges, at the time of the call to the Verve.

It was alleged that Mr Nash had asked to use Watt’s phone in order to go on Facebook, but instead made the ‘prank call’.

Watts, who had previously lived at the Verve for around a month between March and April this year before moving to Old Liverpool Road, said: “He was going through my contacts – he just said he was thinking about making a prank call, and he rang the Verve.

“He put on a Scottish accent and told the person on the other end that there was a bomb in the building.”

Mr Nash and Watts both then made a number of calls to people who were living at the Verve to ‘find out what was happening’.

One of them, James Fowler, then met Mr Nash at KFC on the Pink Eye roundabout to hand over Watts’ phone.

Watts later told the police that he thought his phone might have been lost or stolen when he was having a cast replaced at Warrington Hospital earlier in the day, during which time he had seen Mr Fowler.

He told officers that he would never make a bomb threat ‘because of the Manchester bombing’, adding in court that he had covered for Mr Nash because he ‘didn’t want to be a grass’.

The trial continues.