Model was not behind her own kidnap, says court
AN Italian court ruled yesterday that a British model was not involved in her own kidnapping.
Defence lawyers for suspect Lukasz Herba had accused Chloe Ayling of staging the ordeal in Italy this summer to gain publicity.
But a judge at the Corte d’Assises in Milan dismissed the claim and rejected an application for Miss Ayling, 20, to return to Italy to be cross-examined.
Miss Ayling, who has a two-year-old son, had flown to Milan in July after Herba called her modelling agency to book her for a shoot, saying he was a photographer.
But she claimed that on arrival, she was sedated and bundled into the boot of a car before being held at a remote farmhouse near Turin.
Herba is alleged to have threatened to sell the former Page 3 model for sex to the highest online bidder if his demand for a £264,00 ransom was not met. But questions were raised over Miss Ayling’s account after it emerged that she had shared a bed with her Herba, 30, and had gone shopping for shoes with him. It also emerged that Herba, a Polish oddjob man who lived in Britain, had tried to sell the story to a newspaper while holding Miss Ayling captive.
Herba, who handed Miss Ayling in to the British consulate in Milan after six days, will be tried in February.