



Photo: diegoparra/Pixabay


Leigh kept screaming and begging his girlfriend, who was 35 weeks pregnant at the time, to comply with the kidnappers demands, so she transferred all the money she had – £80 – in the provided bank account, before alerting the authorities. A helicopter and a trained hostage negotiator were called in for what sounded like a complicated situation, but no one called again until next morning, when Leigh himself came home like nothing had ever happened.

Police were waiting for him, and after asking him a few questions, they arrested him for wasting police time and resources. At first, the 45-year-old kept lying about what had really happened, but after being shown video evidence of himself and two friends leaving a shop and carrying booze, he confessed to making up the whole kidnapping thing.


Leigh Ford apologized to his girlfriend fro putting her through such an ordeal, claiming that his friends had put him up to it, and because they had all had a few drinks, he just couldn’t think straight. Despite being so furious she could strangle him, Zoe eventually forgave her prankster partner, as she is convinced he really loves her.

Unfortunately for Ford, the judge wasn’t that forgiving. For wasting around £30,000 worth of police resources during the unnecessary 24h rescue operation, Leigh Ford was sentenced to 16 weeks in jail. The sentence went into effect in February and caused the prankster to miss the birth of his child.



Posted in News        Tags: , , , ,