Police Officer Jailed for Lying About Uxbridge Child Sex Assault

A police constable who falsely accused a council street cleaner of sexually assaulting a child after an argument about cleaning up his garden hedges has been jailed for three years. PC Hitesh Lakhani, 42, called the police stating he had witnessed a man beckon a child of around five years old into some bushes while her mother walked ahead on a residential street in Uxbridge on 5 September, 2018. He claimed to have seen the man pull his shorts down and place the little girl’s hand on him, before her mother noticed she was missing and called out to her, allowing her to escape. Lakhani said he confronted the offender and took a photograph of him. He presented the photo to police when they arrived to take a statement from him. The image was circulated across Hillingdon police’s social media feeds in order to identify the culprit of the alleged assault. It called on the public to contact Crimestoppers if they recognised the man. Upon further investigation by the police, CCTV evidence from a neighbouring house proved the sexual assault could not have happened.

Read more: CPC, https://is.gd/4Cvaf5