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A BLACKMAILER who failed in an attempt to extort £5 million from Tesco through a parcel bomb campaign against customers was jailed for 16 years yesterday.

Robert Dyer, 51, a failed businessman, devised what he thought was the perfect crime after he read about another blackmailer in an old copy of Reader's Digest which he found in a doctor's waiting room, Dorchester Crown Court was told.

Using the pseudonym Sally, Dyer threatened to ruin Tesco's business by targeting customers, initially with letter bombs, and then with pipe bombs which he planned to hide in their gardens, the court was told. He demanded that the store distribute thousands of loyalty cards which could be used in cashpoints to withdraw £1,000 a time, said Derwin Hope, prosecuting.

His plan was for the cards to be distributed free in a local newspaper near his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, and for each to be programmed with a Pin number that only he was given. He would buy several copies of the paper and use the cards to obtain the blackmail cash. Although Dyer initially demanded only £200,000, if all the cards had been distributed and used once then it would have cost the store £5 million.

The court was told that Dyer handled his letters wearing rubber gloves to prevent fingerprints and used water instead of saliva on the stamps so as to avoid any risk of leaving DNA. But he also made some basic errors. A blackmail letter giving details of his bombing campaign was left in a newsagent's photocopier.

During the campaign detectives also discovered three bombs in a sorting office had not reached their destinations because too few stamps had been put on them. However, some bombs did reach their targets. Terence and Jean Evans, both 70, were shocked after opening a letter bomb sent to their home.

Three identical devices that used party poppers to detonate gunpowder were found before they could be opened. Dyer then claimed to have built a series of pipe bombs filled with gunpowder with a sophisticated fuse. Dyer, of Caroline Road, Bournemouth, admitted nine counts of blackmail and one of common assault on Mrs Evans.