'Collar bomb' attacker left note signed in name of fictional Scot

THE perpetrator of the Sydney collar-bomb extortion plot, in which an apparently explosive device was attached to the neck of the daughter of a millionaire businessman, left a ransom note signed in the name of a fictional 19th-century Scottish tycoon.

Australian bomb disposal experts safely freed 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver after she endured a terrifying ten-hour ordeal on Wednesday night. The teenager was unhurt, and police later discovered the intricate device was not a viable bomb.

Police have now revealed that the ransom note left with the device made reference to a book called Tai-Pan, by Australian author James Clavell, which is about rival traders who move into Hong Kong in 1842 at the end of the first Opium War and try to destroy each other in business.

Elements of the Clavell story about a power struggle between two wealthy shipping brokers were used in the extortion note. The note is understood to have been signed "Dirk Struan" - the novel's Scottish protagonist. The title Tai-Pan can mean "Supreme Leader" or "Kingpin". In the book, it is used to describe the book's anti-hero Struan, who is described as capable of great love and terrible hate.

Miss Pulver told police a man wearing a balaclava broke into her home and confronted her while she was in the kitchen.

She said he forced her to stay still while he fitted the device to her neck, and then fled. It is understood the girl was told she could ring police to alert them, but was warned that if she told them about the man or their conversation, he would remotely detonate the device.

When police arrived at the Pulver residence in the Sydney Harbour district of Mosman they found Madeleine alone in the house with the collar bomb tethered to her neck by a chain.

Mosman is one of Sydney's wealthiest suburbs, and the teenager's father, William Pulver, is chief executive of an information technology company. His wife, Belinda, runs a landscaping company.

Yesterday, Mr Pulver fought back tears as he talked about his daughter's ordeal.

Speaking with his wife at his side, he said: "We as parents are extraordinarily proud of Maddy. I think she has woken up this morning in pretty good spirits. She's a little tired, a little sore, from holding this damned device in place for about ten hours."

"We are treating this as an individual incident," New South Wales Police Detective Superintendent Luke Moore said. "We have absolutely no information to suggest this is linked to any other crime."

Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Murdoch said that the device was quite sophisticated and was designed to look like a bomb.He described the extortion plot as a "very, very elaborate hoax".

Australia's Labour prime minister Julia Gillard said she was shocked by the callousness of the person responsible.

She said: "When I looked at it this morning, the first thing I said was, 'It's like a Hollywood script - the kind of thing you would see at the cinema or on TV'.

"You would never expect it to happen in real life in Australia."