A mother whose son was jailed after making bogus bomb threats to hundreds of schools has said prison is "doing him good".

George Duke-Cohan, now 20, of Mutchetts Close, Garston, twice targeted schools in the UK and US with hoax messages that triggered evacuations, before phoning in a fake report of a hijacked aircraft while under investigation.

His mother, Mireya Duke-Cohan, and stepfather Gary said they did everything to keep their son safe online, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Mrs Duke-Cohan said what happened with her son is a "warning" to parents, and called on the government to bring "harsher penalties" against games companies that fail to protect young users.

She told the newspaper: "While you think you are doing your best, unless you are playing the game with them you really don't know.

"It is so easy for kids to be dragged in and before you know it you're not in the game doing these things, it is in the outside world. I think these games are lethal."

Watford Observer:

Officers from the National Crime Agency inside Duke-Cohan's bedroom in Garston

Her son, a former Parmiter's School pupil, was jailed for three years in December after pleading guilty to three counts of making hoax bomb threats.

Mrs Duke-Cohan told the Sunday Telegraph: "I am proud of the fact that he came clean. Prison is doing him good as he has to grow up."

Duke-Cohan, who was doing an IT course at West Herts College, first created panic in March 2018 when he emailed thousands of schools in the UK warning about an explosive.

The National Crime Agency said more than 400 schools were evacuated as a result.

He sent another batch of emails to schools in the US and UK while under investigation the following month.

Duke-Cohan was arrested for a second time and released on pre-charge bail with conditions that he did not use electronic devices.

Before long his name was in the frame for a third hoax, regarding a bogus tip-off that hijackers had taken over a United Airlines flight from Heathrow to San Francisco.

Detectives found that Duke-Cohan had made the calls to San Francisco Airport and its police force while he was on pre-charge bail for the two previous offences.

His family fear the US will request he is extradited before his sentence ends, after they were alerted earlier this year that he had been named on an indictment in the US, the Sunday Telegraph reported.