Woman sentenced to community service for faking pregnancy after Tinder hookup
Perth and Kinross, UK - A woman in Scotland who faked a pregnancy for months to keep a relationship with a one-night stand going has been given 150 hours of community service, a court in the central city of Perth decided on Wednesday.
Jaclyn McGowan (36) spent the night with 30-year-old Jamie Aitken she met on Tinder in June 2019. Shortly after, she told him she was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby.
According to The Herald, McGowan then asked Aitken to pay for a crib, at which point the man got suspicious and refused. After that, she terrified him by claiming she had had a miscarriage, only to play it off as a "false alarm" later.
The deception went on for months, until the man's brother saw McGowan looking slim with no baby bump in sight, despite supposedly being in her eighth month. In one final push to keep from being caught, the woman bought and wore a fake belly. By this point, the police had already gotten involved, as Aitken had filed a complaint in which he said her actions had made him feel suicidal.
In court, McGowan insisted that she had actually become pregnant after the one-night stand, but had lost the baby soon afterwards. Her lawyer also accused Aitken of pressuring her to get an abortion once she contacted him with the "news." Nevertheless, she pled guilty to causing Aitken harm with her behavior.
McGowan admitted she wanted to hurt him for his behavior during their short relationship.
Cover photo: 123RF/lightfieldstudios