A man from Harrow has been fined and given an evening curfew after pleading guilty to wasting police time. Pedro Barreto had claimed his mobile phone was stolen during a mugging last November but later admitted making up the story in order to claim on his phone insurance.
Mr Barreto was ordered to pay £1000 compensation to the Metropolitan Police, was given a 6 month curfew between 8 pm and 6 am and will also be electronically tagged for 16 weeks.
His initial story was that he was robbed by three men after stopping his car on the way to work. When police officers tried to help him pinpoint the exact location of the robbery, he admitted that he’d lost his phone and had made the story up in order to get a crime reference number. Police arrested Mr Barreto due to the seriousness of the allegation and the amount of police time and resources wasted.
[Metropolitan Police Service]
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