A LORRY driver sparked a major police operation after faking the attempted hijacking of his heavy goods vehicle, a court heard yesterday.
David Bebbington told police he had fought off a gang of masked men who tried to steal his lorry from a lay-by, eventually forcing them to jump into a Ford Focus and drive off empty-handed.
He kept up the pretence for several hours while Tayside P
olice alerted other forces around the country to look out for the getaway car.
Bebbington, 45, said the gang had pulled into the lay-by at Kinfauns on the A90 between Dundee and Perth on 12 November last year, but he had managed to fight them off with the help of a metal bar he had in his cab.
But as he was interviewed, the story began to unravel and he eventually admitted it was a complete fantasy. He told the police: "I made it up. It was a cry for help, I suppose."
At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Bebbington, of Blackley, Manchester, admitted wasting police time by pretending he had been the victim of an attempted robbery.
David Holmes, defending, said: "He still finds it difficult to give a rational explanation for his behaviour. The strains and stresses of the various burdens he was carrying became too much for him on the day in question."
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis fined Bebbington £1,000. He told him what he had done had been "a total waste of time" and had diverted police resources from real crime investigations.
The full article contains 263 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
