News / Lied to the police
A TWENTY nine year old woman from Lerwick who faked her identity in an attempt to avoid police prosecution will learn her fate in July.
Jaden Paterson, of Nordavatn, previously pled guilty to giving false information to police at an address on Lerwick’s Lovers Loan on 23 December 2014 in an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
At Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday, procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said police executed a search warrant at the town address, which had a number of people inside at the time.
Around 40 minutes later, officers asked Paterson for her details, when she gave the name Sarah Donnelly and a fake date of birth.
It wasn’t a “spontaneous, panic-driven decision”, Mackenzie said, because she had time to think before speaking to the police.
Meanwhile court proceedings on a drugs complaint were called against Sarah Donnelly, even though the fiscal said he remained “skeptical” whether this woman was a real person.
Paterson, he said, was adamant she did exist and the case was continued in an attempt to trace her.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said things had taken a “bad turn” for his client at the time of the offence, when she had been on the “wrong path”.
However Sheriff John Rafferty described the offence as “very significant” and a “proper, sustained attempt to pervert the course of justice”.
He adjourned the case for social work reports until 6 July, with Paterson’s bail continued.
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