'I blame myself' says father, as shoe bomber Richard Reid pleads guilty

The father of the so-called "shoe bomber" Richard Reid has said he stands by his son and holds himself responsible for the act of terror that could have killed 196 aircraft passengers and crew. "I blame myself for not being there when he was growing up," Robin Reid told the BBC. "I was in prison when I should have been there."

Richard Reid, 29, a British citizen, pleaded guilty on Friday to trying to blow up an American Airlines transatlantic flight by detonating explosives hidden in his shoe. He now faces a 60-year jail sentence.

His father, originally from Jamaica, has already received the attentions of self-appointed avengers. The windows at his flat, on a rundown council estate, in Streatham, south London, have been broken. All his front windows are covered with chipboard. At the back of the flat, which lines a main road, one pane of glass has been smashed and the others were protected with mattresses, chipboard or closed curtains.

On Friday Richard Reid laughed as he admitted to a court in Boston, Massachusetts, that he had tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight in December. "Basically, I got on the plane with a bomb," he said.

"Basically, I tried to ignite it. Basically, yeah, I tried to damage the plane."

He was overpowered by fellow passengers who tied him up with belts and headphone wires.

In his interview with the BBC, Robin Reid, 52, described his son as "gentle and caring" and said he had been "brainwashed" by Muslim extremists.

"I reacted in the way any father would," he said, "with sheer horror. I am just grateful he did not succeed. I think now that my son will die in prison. I will try and visit him, but with my record I may not get a visa and with my disability it will be hard. I will have to just write to him and hope he knows that I support him and love him – I always will."

Richard Reid was jailed in Britain in the mid-1990s for a series of muggings and is believed to have converted to Islam while in prison. A Home Office spokeswoman said all Imams are personally vetted by the Prison Service Muslim Adviser to ensure they are moderate and not linked to fundamental organisations. "The Imams also go through the usual Prison Service checks which are made on everyone since September 11," she said.