Can just about imagine someone like this accusing the driver of stealing the phone she's lost, but obviously this is taking it all to another level
And probably one of those who thinks the driver should drop everything and maybe drive miles to return her phone to her. It's not stated here, but I'd guess she wasn't willing to pay a return fee...I'd guess the driver would have been happy enough to return it if she had
Offender's lost phone led her to make false sex attack claim against Falkirk taxi driver
https://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/co ... er-8937439
Joanne Riddock, 35, was supposedly triggered when she called her lost phone and the driver answered, telling her he was busy but she could come to his house to pick it up later.
Appearing at Falkirk Sheriff Court last Thursday, Riddock had pleaded guilty to giving false details to police in Westfield Street, Falkirk and threatening behaviour at Bruce Taxis, Olld Abbots Works, Bankside, Falkirk on August 17 last year.
The procurator fiscal stated Riddock called police at 12.40am claiming to be the victim of a sexual assault by a local taxi driver and stated he had stolen her phone.
"She said she had got in the taxi at the corner of Glebe Street and Newmarket Street in Falkirk. She said she had left her phone in the taxi.”
She then went on to claim he grabbed her and tried to get her back in the taxi, ripping her top, then he threatened to post explicit pictures of her – that he found on her phone – on social media.
None of this was true and, thankfully for the driver, dash cam footage was available to prove the statement she gave to police was – as Sheriff Christopher Shead put it – a "pack of lies”.
The court heard Riddock actually got in touch with the taxi firm and stated if the taxi driver did not return her phone she would come to the premises and “blow it up”.
At this point she clearly said “I’m going to get the driver”, accusing the firm of “protecting a paedophile and a rapist” and calling them “dirty scumbags”.
At the end of the call she said: “I’m calling the police now and I’m telling you right now they will be there. You’re not stealing my phone.”
Riddock’s defence solicitor stated her false claims were “resolved fairly quickly”. It was stated she had indeed lost her phone – leaving it in the taxi – and the driver told her he was too busy to bring it to her at the time, but she could come and get the phone from his house after he had finished work.
He gave her the address and, rather than see this as someone helping her, Riddock was “triggered” by it and thought the driver had an ulterior motive for having her come to his home.
Riddock was said to have “made some poor choices in her life”.
Sheriff Shead said he had no doubt the taxi driver would have been prosecuted for something he had never done, if not for the dash cam footage being available.
He said it was one thing to call up a taxi firm and make threats, but it was “quite a different thing to tell a pack of lies and get police involved”.
Riddock, who lives in the Stirling area, was placed on a community payback order with the condition she complete 200 hours of unpaid work within 12 months. She was also made subject to a restriction of liberty order, meaning she must remain in her home from 9pm to 7am for the next four months.
