Greenwich Tube bomb was a prank, autistic teen who put explosive device on train will claim

Discovery of suspect rucksack led to North Greenwich underground station being put on lockdown for eight hours

Damon Smith was detained by armed police after the discovery of a suspect backpack put North Greenwich tube station on lockdown for eight hours (Twitter)

An autistic teenager accused of sparking a terror scare after the discovery of a suspicious package at a London underground station will claim he only put an explosive device on a train as a prank, a court heard.

Damon Smith, 19, was arrested by armed police after the discovery of a suspect backpack put North Greenwich tube station on lockdown for eight hours.

The rucksack was found inside a Jubilee Line underground train on 20 October and later detonated by bomb disposal experts in a controlled explosion.

Mr Smith, of Abbeyfield Road in Southwark, south-east London, spoke only to confirm his name and address when he stood before senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Thursday.

Throughout the 18-minute hearing, however, he smiled and waved in the direction of his mother in public gallery.

He entered no plea to the charge of unlawfully and maliciously making or possessing an unspecified explosive substance with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.

However, defence counsel Simon Eastwood indicated that his client, who has a form of autism, would be pleading not guilty on the grounds that it was a prank.

The rucksack had contained a flask, powder, ball bearings, a clock timing device, a battery and an initiator.

Mr Smith, a student at London Metropolitan University, was arrested the day after the incident on Holloway Road in North London, yards from his university’s library.

He was charged under the Explosive Substances Act 1883.

Mr Smith, who appeared in court wearing a baggy grey-green jumper and grey trousers, was remanded in custody until his next appearance, at the Old Bailey, on 17 November.