Desperate blackmailer threatens to poison shoppers with CYANIDE, demanding £2 million pounds to stop his twisted plot

A MAN who threatened to have poisoned supermarket foods with cyanide, demanding £2 million, has been jailed for seven years after his blackmail plot was foiled.

David Ward, 51, wrote a threatening note to a British supermarket, warning he had laced food on the shelves with pure cyanide.

The chemistry graduate said he had targeted "slow-selling" items which would be sold within five days and lead to the "certain death" of anyone who ate the products.

The blackmailer even posted a vial of cyanide to the supermarket to show he was serious, writing: "The dose employed will result in the certain death of a whole family within 30 minutes of consumption. We want two million pounds.

"We are all employees of the company and free to poison your ­products at any time of our choosing. We have the power to destroy your company and we will unless paid.

"Don’t pay and people will die, I promise you, and we will want four million then for the extra unwanted attention this would bring."

He ordered the supermarket to place an obituary in a national newspaper under a specific name to signal that they were willing to pay the blackmail amount.

Signing of the letter as "a businessman", he wrote: "Make the announcement and ­innocent people need not die."

But the plot was failed when police traced the DNA left on the envelope to Ward.

Authorities managed to use the DNA attached to the stamp to Ward, who had been convicted of an unconnected offence in 2012.