AN APPLE Store worker faces jail after he made hoax bomb phone calls to Churchill Square because he wanted the day off.

Brighton University student Arjunbir Soin, 21, said there were five bombs in the city shopping centre in a bid to force staff to close it.

Soin pleaded guilty to five charges of making hoax calls at Brighton Magistrates Court yesterday.

The engineering student has now been told he could be sent to prison.

The court heard Soin made five calls to the shopping centre on December 30 last year, while working a shift at the Apple store.

The calls were made to the Churchill Square customer service desk, before he targeted River Island and Costa.

Soin made the first call at 9.04am as he sat in his car.

Customer service desk worker Jurgita Endrijaityte received a call from a male telling her there were five bombs in the centre.

When she asked where the bombs were, the call ended.

The student made a second call at 10.30am, after starting his shift, from the toilet.

He phoned the customer service desk again, asking Ms Endrijaityte: “Did you find the bomb?”

He made a third call at 1.35pm from his car to River Island, telling staff there was a bomb present in the store.

At 2.04pm he made a second call from the car park, telling Church Square operations manager Sam McLean “you don’t take bomb threats very seriously do you”, before telling him “there are four bombs in the centre” and hanging up.

One hour late he made a call to Costa, speaking to manager Viktorija Fursha and telling her there was a bomb in the coffee shop.

Police traced the number to Soin and found out he worked in the Apple Store. They seized his phone and found a call to Costa in his call history.

Prosecutor Martina Sherlock told the court Soin initially denied making the calls before he was played three recordings of them.

She told the court: “He told officers he was behind with university work and wanted the day off work.

“He didn’t know how to ask for a day off.

“So he thought let’s do this and see what happens.

“He said he was sorry and not a terrorist, and did not want to hurt anyone.”

She said the student faced a custodial sentence.

After the bomb threats were made, management at Churchill Square took the decision not to evacuate and shoppers were unaware of the threats.

Sarah Smith, defending, said Soin was “an absolute idiot”.

She told the court: “He was stressed out by university group work and already had outstanding work.

“He had already on a number of occasions called in sick.

“He was an absolute idiot.

“He sat in his car and expected there to be an emergency evacuation.

“He then went to work and made a number of other calls because he thought he had not got through to the right person.

“It was not sophisticated and he used his own phone.”

She also told the court the student, originally from Middlesex, struggled with juggling studies and working 16 hours a week at the store.

She said he was finding adjusting to university difficult and wanted to drop out, but was scared to tell his family because of his high- achieving older brother.

She added: “He now has to face up to what he has done.”

Soin, of Culpepper Close, Brighton, pleaded guilty to five counts of communicating false information through a bomb hoax.

Chairman of magistrates Ian Stuart committed the case to Lewes Crown Court for sentencing.

He said: “We consider this serious enough to commit to the Crown Court.

“We don’t feel we have sufficient sentencing powers.”

Soin will appear next month.