1. Australian journalist needs to fill a hole on the front page of his paper, so makes up a story about a
sex-pest.
2. Police contact the journalist to say they've caught the (imaginary) sex-pest.
3. Journalist realises police have used his story as an excuse to charge a minor sex-offender they've had
their eye on for a while, and feels so guilty he vows never to make up a story again.
Of course, like all good stories the devil is in the details and here the details are the nature of the invented crime, which was nothing if not creative and involved using a long wire hook to surreptitiously raise the hems of women's skirts in order to peek at their stockings.
As an aside, if you Google 'Hook Hoax' you'll discover there are all sorts of conspiracy theories suggesting that the Sandy Hook school shootings last December were a hoax perpetuated by the anti-gun lobbyists in America. These theories were quite a big thing, apparently - the youtube videos have had over eleven million views - but I didn't know about them until this morning. Part of me wishes I still didn't know about them.
As another aside, the Hook Hoax story also features in this book,
which I am now desperate to own. Some entries from the index:
British Military Fainting Epidemics
Husband-Poisoning Mania
Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
Zimbabwe Zombie School
Spouse Dropping Revival
Sardine Packing Hysteria
Genital Shrinking Scares
Genital Vanishing Scares
Phantom Hat-pin Stabber
