A man who was caught out lying about his ‘stolen’ vehicle will spend Christmas in custody.
Daniel Harrison, 29, had failed to stop for a police officer in Abingdon in August 2020 before leaving it parked-up.
The following day, he reported the VW Golf as stolen – filling in forms on Thames Valley Police’s website claiming the vehicle had been taken.
He subsequently contacted the police to try and arrange to pick up tools that had been left in the car, which by then was in a recovery yard.
Harrison’s lies were unmasked by messages on his phone. He had told friends that he was hiding from the police and, in others, tried to persuade his parents to pick up the car for him.
Officers had been suspicious about the stolen vehicle report from the outset, prosecutor Matthew Knight told Oxford Crown Court this week.
He was interviewed twice, having been invited to the police station on October 15 to discuss his stolen vehicle.
On his arrival at the station, Harrison was told he was being arrested. He tried to pass his mobile phone over to his mother before the device was seized by the police.
During the first interview he maintained his ‘elaborate story’ that he had gone to Witney without the car in order to celebrate a friend becoming pregnant. He told the officers he ‘wouldn’t want to lie’.
By the time he was interviewed a second time, officers had found the incriminating messages on his phone.
But they waited until 15 minutes in to play their trump card. The officers reminded him of the meaning of perverting the course of justice and asked him to be ‘frank’, but Harrison confirmed his fictious account.
As soon as the officer brought up the topic of his phone, he confessed to having lied.
It was almost two years before he was charged with perverting the course of justice. At the magistrates’ court, Harrison, of Larkhill Road, Abingdon, indicated he would plead guilty to the single allegation.
Sending him to prison for four months on Tuesday, Recorder Paul Reid said: “This was an initial offence which was not of the greatest significance but the fact of the matter is this was a sustained attempt to deceive the police.
“The deception that you attempted was, in my judgement, serious in that you continued to lie to the police, you took up police time which, I have already said, is better spent on other problems and the only reason your deception did not succeed was the persistence of the police.”
Read more from this author
This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.
To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward