While some children might eventually give in to parental pressure, there are some others who are so scared of dentists that they would go extreme lengths to avoid them. This 12-year-old boy was so petrified of dentists that he staged his own kidnapping — a story which the police believed and spent a month looking for the “culprit.” According to the French newspaper Midi Libre, the this staged kidnapping was reported from the village of St. Gervais in France’s Alpine Valley. It all started when the 12-year-old was spotted hiding by the police as they made a routine patrol through the village in the afternoon of May 21. According to The Local.fr, the boy was picked up by the police and, when inquired as to why he was hiding, he claimed he was abducted from the nearby town of Bagnols by a man and that he was hiding out of fear. He told officers he was going to his dental appointment when a man pulled up to ask directions. He even gave the officers a detailed description of the man who had abducted him – "European looking, aged in his thirties, of muscular build with a height of around 1.70 and a vertical scar on his right cheek". The boy also told the police that his kidnapper wore a black T-shirt and tight jeans. He revealed details about the car in which he said he was taken as well Now, that’s as detailed as it could get. The young boy was also able to hand over details of the car he was driving and of course what happened during the abduction. The police, who treated this case with extreme priority, quickly started looking for possible suspects and new clues. Almost a month into the investigation with no credible leads, they decided to check CCTV images from the town of Bagnols — the place where the boy was kidnapped. Under further questioning the boy admitted this week that he had invented the whole story because he had been afraid to go to his appointment at the dentist.
– Say you love going to the dentist? Well neither does a boy in France who concocted an entire kidnapping story to avoid admitting that he had ducked a dental visit, The Local reports. Police found the 12-year-old during a patrol of the Alpine village St Gervais last month, asked what was up, and listened to his tale of woe. The boy described his kidnapper in some detail—about 5'6", 30s, muscular, with (of course) a scar on his cheek—and explained how the abduction went down. He was supposedly headed for the dentist when the guy pulled up, asked for directions, dragged him in the car, and drove off. Only during a surprise stop was the boy able to run away. Well, police investigated for a month, drawing up an e-fit image of the suspect and following leads, Midi Libre reports—until investigators noticed that closed-circuit TV images from the boy's hometown of Bagnols didn't quite match his story. So they pressed him further, and he admitted to concocting the whole thing because he was afraid of the dental chair. Exactly what his punishment will be isn't clear, notes Inquisitr. We might suggest a year of free cleanings. (On a serious note, a 3-year-old child suffered brain damage during a dental visit and died soon after.)