A fantasist who slashed his own face with a razor 16 times and told police he was the victim of a racist attack has been jailed.
Christopher Afford claimed four Asian men had set on him and menacingly warned him ‘no white person should walk here’.
The case worried detectives as it happened near the New England area of Peterborough, Cambs which has a large Asian population.
Officers wasted hours of valuable police time trawling through CCTV footage trying to trace the culprits.
But a court heard that Afford, 28, then admitted cutting himself and making the whole thing up to get attention after breaking-up with his girlfriend.
He admitted perverting the course of justice and was jailed for a year at Peterborough Crown Court on Monday.
Judge Nic Madge told him: “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.”
Craig McDougall, prosecuting, said: “On the day the defendant had an argument with his then partner.
“He walked home from work in the Hamptons.
“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, 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.”
