What’s the maddest thing you’ve seen or heard of someone doing in the UK just to keep up with a lie they told?

I borrowed and proceeded to lose my dad's phone whilst walking home from a pub that I'd been drinking at underage (16). It fell out of my pocket whilst taking a shortcut over hay bails and back alleys on the 2 mile walk at 1 AM. When I realised I "stupidly" threw myself over our 2 ft high wall out the front of the house to leave a dent in the plants and grass the other side, went in the house covered in mud, knocked on my parent's bedroom door and told them I had been mugged outside the house. Well that was the start of the one and only lie Ive truly told and boy was it a lesson. The next morning at 7 AM, 2 police officers were interviewing me asking for descriptions and timelines of the suspected theft. I was encouraged to go to A&E to ensure I didn't have a concussion, that I managed to avoid. The weekend went by with me retracing my steps never finding the phone and feeling terrible that someone would get in trouble for a completely fabricated story. It doesn't end there. I get to school on Monday and my friends are asking what happened l, did I tell my parents ect, I just said I hadn't told them yet as I was way too embarrassed to admit the police had been interviewing me hungover on the Saturday. I walked home from school still feeling terrible about the whole thing and what did I find when I got in the front door, a reporter from the local paper interviewing my mum about the incident. She proceeded to drag me in to tell the story/lie to another person, I knew I should come clean then but i just couldn't, so I rehashed the same bullshit to this reporter. I exclaimed that I did not want my name mentioned at all if the article was published as I didn't want anyone knowing about the incident. He left and I felt like dieing. Anyway cut to a week later, I've sort of forgotten about the whole thing and kept myself to myself, friends have forgotten too and life's normal. Until one lunch we are in the local shop and my friend picks up the local newspaper and says, "hey, isn't this your house" a massive article about crime on my road with photos of the dent in the front garden from a struggle. He hadn't mentioned my name but he hadn't needed too, I had to live with that story for years and it taught me a valuable lesson. Admit when you have done something wrong as soon as you can, it will get out of hand If you don't. I came clean to my parents years later after a friend mentioned it at birthday dinner, and they found it hilarious.