Fraudsters have been warned they won't get away with making false allegations to police after a woman was fined for claiming her car had been stolen.
The 27-year-old woman, from the town centre area of Hartlepool, was handed an £80 fixed penalty for wasting police time after claiming her Ford Puma vehicle had been stolen earlier this month.
Investigations from police discovered the allegations were false, and the woman admitted the information she had given was wrong before any insurance claims were made.
Detective Inspector Keith Groves, of Hartlepool Police, warned anyone thinking of trying to carry out similar scams in the hope of claiming insurance money would be caught.
Det Insp Groves said: "If you falsely report a crime, you will be fined for wasting police time.
"Because our crime figures are so low at the moment, every single report to us is fully investigated. In the past, while investigations were always thorough, some things may have gone unnoticed – but that is certainly not the case now.
"This particular incident with the woman reporting the stolen car was looked at, and it quickly became apparent the allegations were not true.
"It hadn't got as far as her claiming on the insurance or anything like that, because we would have been looking at fraud charges then.
"She was brought into the police station over the weekend and issued with a fixed penalty for wasting police time."
Other crimes which are reported include mobile phone theft and house burglary, with insurance claims generally the main incentive.
Det Insp Groves added: "These reports are not uncommon. Mobile phones being reported stolen happens a lot, but we work closely with the network providers to discover whether the claims are true or not.
"People can also claim they have been burgled, or that some property from their home has been taken.
"The motive behind these claims is to make a claim on the insurance.
Each report has a different value in terms of money, obviously someone claiming for a stolen car will hope to get more than someone claiming a stolen TV.
"The money has to come from somewhere and has to be paid out.
"People think these type of crimes are victimless, but they take up the resources of the police as we carry out the investigations.
"While that is happening, genuine crimes are not being dealt with.
"The message is that we are doing everything we can to ensure the crimes that are reported to us are true, and we continue to do our utmost to detect the crime that is genuinely reported."
Source: Hartlepool Mail