A “battleaxe” wife received a slap on the wrist for wasting hours of police time after she staged a fake robbery – because she wanted to get her husband’s attention.
Amy Tatton, 29, wept as she told her husband Timothy, 26, a masked man had broken into their home and held a knife to her throat and her arm while he ransacked the property.
Tatton dialled 999 and gave police a witness statement which included a description of the fake attacker and even posed in her local newspaper claiming to be a terrified victim.
She also gave a graphic account of the robbery, claiming the intruder had threatened her with a vegetable knife before running the blade up her arm.
Officers also showed her dozens of pictures of burglars from their database in a bid to catch the culprit.
But after police forensic experts combed her home in Lincoln for clues and detectives discovered inconsistencies in Tatton’s story she admitted she had made the crime up.
Astonishingly, chubby Tatton even tried to blame her husband, moaning to officers about him neglecting her and not showing her enough attention.
Tatton admitted wasting 27 hours and 35 minutes of police time after she claimed she had been attacked on June 20 last year when she appeared at Lincoln Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
She was ordered to pay Lincolnshire Police £500 after the court heard she wasted £1,238.71 of taxpayers’ cash as officers investigated her claims.
Prosecutor Daniel Paulson told the court: “On June 20, at about 3.10am, she alleged she had been burgled at her home address.
“She reported that a gentleman had broken into her house and held a knife to her throat.
“As a result of that claim there was a police investigation, including forensic testing of the knife they seized.
“No offender was ever identified for that burglary because it never happened.
“She was arrested and in her police interview she admitted she made it up to get her husband’s attention.
“She was reprimanded on a previous occasion for wasting police time.”
Tatton, who has a 21-month-old daughter and is expecting a son this June, was arrested in September last year after holes in her account emerged.
Defending Tatton, Judith Brennan told the court her lie stemmed from the pressures of family life.
She said: “She was feeling extremely guilty about having to leave her daughter in childcare which she and her husband were struggling to afford.
“She was also having issues at work because her daughter was poorly.
“When she was arrested she immediately told police her statement was false and once at the station she did not hold up the procedure in any way, and she made a full admission.”
Speaking about the fake burglar in November last year, Tatton lied: “I came downstairs to get a drink, turned the kitchen light on and he was standing there.
“He shoved me up against the worktop, put a hand around my throat, hit the side of my face, grabbed a small vegetable knife and scraped it down my left arm.
“Luckily it just scratched me. He got away with nothing.
“He didn’t say a word but it was so frightening.
“You don’t expect to go downstairs to find a burglar in your house.
“I think I startled him. I was thinking, ‘what did he want’ and what was he going to do.
“I was just grateful my 14-month-old daughter Gracie was staying at a relative’s.”
She also described the imaginary suspect as 5ft 7in tall, with short blond hair – and said he was wearing dark trousers and jacket.
Speaking today, former chef Tatton, who is now a volunteer at a toddler group and with the Boys’ Brigade, said: “I just want to forget about it.”
But yesterday her neighbours branded her “a battleaxe.”
One said: “She is quite well known for being a battleaxe of a wife around here.
“I can’t believe she would waste police time pretending someone had held a knife to her throat though, that is taking it too far.
“It just shows how selfish she is. Those officers could have been working on something important but instead they were looking into her stupid lies.
“I don’t know how her husband puts up with her to be honest. If it was me she would be out the door.
“He’s quite mild mannered but has his head in the clouds a bit.”
