Mum: 'My son is not a terrorist"

Tom Cowley, 19, of Queens Road, was arrested for offences under the Explosives Act at 6pm on Thursday.

But Jeanette Cowley claims her son, who is a budding chemist, was just experimenting.

Police were questioning him all day yesterday, but stressed that it was a criminal inquiry and not linked to terrorism.

Police sent chemicals found in a shed at the house on Thursday morning away for analysis.

A second search of the property at 11pm covering the inside of the house as well as the garden shed, saw officers remove a further package.

Jeanette said the police had only been alerted to the chemicals in the shed because her son called an ambulance after inhaling some of the fumes.

"I think he had glycerine and iron oxide," she said.

"I think it was sulphuric acid or sulphur or something that was giving off fumes that made him feel bad.

"I don't know what else he had in there. He bought them off the internet. Some came by post and some were delivered in a white van.

"He was just experimenting from instructions he got off the internet.

"He just liked fiddling around with chemicals. He's not a terrorist."

Jeanette said Tom, who was hoping to go to college in September to study chemistry, had been up all night on Wednesday because fumes given off during his experiments had made him feel ill.

"He was the one who phoned the ambulance," she said. "I fell asleep on the sofa and when I opened my eyes at about eight o'clock there were about four paramedics in the living room.

"They told me we had to take him into hospital because they needed to check him over. He was having a panic attack."

After Tom was released from hospital he and Jeanette returned to find Queens Road in chaos, with a bomb squad and police and fire officers surrounding the house.

Jeanette said Tom, who is unemployed, had suffered another panic attack in police custody, meaning officers had not been able to interview him.

She said: "He has never had panic attacks before. It is just since inhaling that gas."

Tom's father Richard, said: "He had had the stuff and been making stuff for a month or so.

"We told him to get rid of it. I thought if he could get that sort of stuff delivered so could people wanting to do real damage with them."

Residents living within a 30-metre radius of the house were evacuated for a second time late yesterday evening.

Next door neighbours Diane and David Gleed said they had only been home about an hour and had just gone to bed when they were told to leave for the shelter of a nearby cricket pavilion.

Diane said: "We were there until about four in the morning and are shattered now.

"We don't really know them. He's a bit a quiet and withdrawn. We don't really see much of him.

"It is worrying to think you don't know what kind of thing could be being made just next door to you."