A man managed to get himself jailed for 16 weeks and miss the birth of his child, after lying to his pregnant girlfriend that he had been kidnapped, just so he could get drunk with his buddies.

This kidnapping prank gone wrong took place when Leigh Ford, a 45-year-old man from Blackpool made several frantic phone calls to his pregnant partner.

He told her that he had been kidnapped and that he was going to be tortured unless she transferred all the money she had into the kidnappers’ bank account.

Joking

At first, the woman thought he was joking, but he sounded really scared, and there were other men shouting in the background, threatening to cut off Leigh’s legs, and pour hot water on him.

So she complied, but she also called the police.

“At first, I just thought he was winding me up,” 35-year-old Zoe said. “But he sounded really scared. The phone went dead and then it rang again.

Shouting

I could hear men shouting in the background, threatening to break Leigh’s legs and throw boiling water over him. They were threatening to mutilate him, cut off his genitals, and I was panic-stricken.”

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 – Sh 8,000 – 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.

Helicopter

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.