A NEWTON Abbot student at the centre of a terrorist alert in the town last year is expected to admit leaving a home-made ball-bearing bomb on a London tube train, the Old Bailey heard this week.

Damon Smith, 19, made the device and left it on the Jubilee Line train at North Greenwich last October, his legal team said.

His subsequent arrest in connection with the drama led to a shutdown of Newton Abbot’s East Street as counter-terrorist officers searched his former home in Tudor Road.

His lawyers told the court there was no dispute over his making and leaving the ‘viable’ device.

But they would examining what his intentions were.

Smith, who did not appear in court, was a university student in London at the time, having left Newton Abbot in May. He is next expected in court on March.