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warned him ‘no white person should walk here.”
But really the 28-year-old had made the whole thing up to get attention after breaking-up with his girlfriend.
Craig McDougall, prosecuting, said: ‘On the day the defendant had an argument with his then partner.
‘When he got home, his brother-in-law phoned police saying Afford had been attacked by four Asian men.
‘An ambulance attended and medics found a number of cuts to his head, but they were all superficial.
‘He also told police that the men had warned him: ‘white people should not walk here'”.
The court heard that Afford, a chef from Peterborough, even gave descriptions of his make believe attackers to police. But when officers examined CCTV footage of the area they did not see anyone matching their description and no blood was found at the reported scene.
Charles Falk, defending, said: “The defendant made the allegation in a moment of madness when at his lowest ebb because of the end of his relationship.
“He cut himself as a result of attention seeking. The break up of his relationship affected him deeply.”
The case also worried detectives as he had claimed the incidents happened near the New England area of Peterborough which has a large Asian population.
Officers wasted hours of valuable police time trawling through CCTV footage trying to trace the culprits.
Afford admitted perverting the course of justice and was jailed for a year at Peterborough Crown Court on Monday. Judge Nic Madge said: “I stress that I put the possibly political undertones of this out of my mind.
“But I cannot ignore the risk of inflammation of community or race relations.
“In my judgment, that means this is more serious than simply wasting public resources of police and ambulance.” — Daily Mail.
Online Reporter