A STAFFORDSHIRE man who met a Dundee woman via an internet chat room decided to visit her after falling out with his partner.

Unfortunately his partner reported him as a missing person. When inquiries led police to Dundee he went to the local police station and said he had been kidnapped in his own town and brought to the city.

In a letter to Dundee Sheriff Court yesterday, Russell Anthony Thomas Smith (25), Manley Road, Lichfield, admitted that on September 14 he wasted the time of police officers by falsely telling them he had been abducted.

He also admitted possessing £25 worth of cannabis resin.

Depute fiscal Alison McKenzie said Smith had met the woman via the chat room last year and they had exchanged messages.

On September 13, he met her at Dundee railway station and the pair spent the night together at her Hilltown flat.

The next day she received a phone call from police in Lichfield, who had obtained her number and asked if she had seen Smith.

Smith urged her to lie and she told police she had not seen him.

Smith then left the flat and went to Hilltown police office where he told officers he had been kidnapped in Lichfield by two Asian males and bundled into a P-registered green Mondeo, held against his will and taken to Dundee.

He said on his arrival the two Asians had taken him to a flat in Hilltown where he had escaped.

The officers took the allegation extremely seriously and called in the CID and inquiries were begun.

During the inquiries Smith was asked if he could remember where about in Hilltown he had been held.

He said he could and led them straight to the address of the woman he had spent the night with.

His fabrication immediately became apparent and he was arrested. On returning to the police station the officers found cannabis resin in his property.

He told police that ,on realising his partner had been worried enough to report him missing, he decided to return home.

However, he had no money with him and felt if he had told the truth police would not help him get back to Lichfield, so he made up the kidnapping in an attempt to have the police return him to his home town.

Sheriff Grant McCulloch deferred sentence until December 21 and called for Smith to appear personally.