A woman who withdrew a claim her parents had kidnapped and beaten her in their convenience store has now admitted lying about being the driver of a car that crashed into a wall.
Rhonda Al-Fadhli originally told police she had been chained up by her father and repeatedly attacked with a hose by her mother after she rejected an arranged marriage with a cousin.
The allegations against Mohamed Al-Fadhli and his wife Enam Hmeed led to them being charged with offences which could have seen them serve up to 25 years in jail.
Mr Al-Fadhli and Ms Hmeed were arrested in April last year after police found Ms Al-Fadhli in their store in Dubbo in western NSW with a metal chain padlocked around her neck.
They were accused of assaulting their daughter when they discovered she was still in contact with her boyfriend Mohamad Ebady, who had asked for their permission to marry her.
All charges were dropped in October after Ms Al-Fadhli retracted the kidnapping story and her parents walked free from court.
On Friday, Ms Al-Fadhli faced court to plead guilty to knowingly making a false or misleading statement, but that offence was unrelated to the events in Dubbo.
Instead, the 21-year-old admitted falsely telling police she had been the driver of a car involved in an accident at Condell Park in Sydney’s west, three weeks before the kidnapping allegations.
Rhonda Al-Fadhli, who withdrew claims her parents had kidnapped and beaten her in their convenience store, has now admitted lying about being the driver of a car that crashed into a wall. She is pictured on Friday
Ms Al-Fadhli originally told police she had been chained up by her father and repeatedly attacked with a hose by her mother after she rejected an arranged marriage with a relative
Ms Al-Fadhli had been in the front passenger seat of a white BMW M5 sedan when it crashed into a retaining wall outside a house on the corner of Olive Street and Birdsall Avenue about 2.30pm on March 30.
Bankstown Local Court heard Ms Al-Fadhli told police she was behind the wheel of the BMW when they asked her who had been driving.
That was despite ‘multiple witnesses informing police that she was not the driver, rather it was her male counterpart,’ according to a tendered statement of facts.
‘Evidence has been obtained to refute the statement made by the accused which clearly identifies that it would not have been possible for her to have been the driver of the motor vehicle at the time of the crash.
‘During this interaction the accused displayed no regard for her actions which hindered an active investigation being conducted by police. The accused displayed no issue with lying to police on multiple occasions.’
Asked on Friday to explain why she had lied to police, Ms Al-Fadhli said that when officers asked her companion ‘Mohamad’ who had been in charge of the vehicle he pointed at her.
‘I just went along with the story that it was me driving,’ she said. ‘I just felt like I was under pressure because he just blamed it on me.
‘Honestly, I was just shocked. I didn’t think he’d just throw me under the bus. I just felt pressure to continue on with the lie.’
Mohamed Al-Fadhli and his wife Enam Hmeed (above) were charged with offences which could have seen them serve up to 25 years in prison
Ms Hmeed and her husband were arrested in April last year after police found their daughter Rhonda in their convenience store (pictured) with a metal chain padlocked around her neck
Magistrate Elaine Truscott said while the offence was serious she accepted Ms Al-Fadhli had felt under pressure and placed her on a two-year conditional release order without conviction.
Ms Truscott also asked Ms Al-Fadhli if she wanted to deal with a drug charge for which she was due to be sentenced later this month.
Ms Al-Fadhli was convicted in her absence on January 15 of possessing a prohibited drug at Villawood in Sydney’s west on November 25.
She said she had been unaware of that court date and wished to plead not guilty but did not deny police had found 12g of cannabis in a car she had been driving.
‘I was found responsible because I was the one behind the wheel,’ she said. ‘I don’t smoke or do any of that.’
Ms Al-Fadhli said the car she was driving was not hers and it had been pulled over previously for drug searches.
‘I didn’t know it was there at the time because it was placed under the seat,’ she told Ms Truscott of the drugs.
Ms Al-Fadhli will now attempt to have the finding of guilt on the drug charge overturned.
Ms Al-Fadhli (above) faced court on Friday when she pleaded guilty to knowingly making a false or misleading statement but that offence was unrelated to what happened in Dubbo
Outside court, Ms Al-Fadhli agreed she had withdrawn her kidnapping claim – which she described as ‘a very serious complaint’ – but declined to discuss the case any further.
Ms Hmeed, 46, and Mr Al-Fadhli, 53, were each charged nine months ago with one count of kidnapping and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
They had refused Mohamad Ebady’s proposal to their daughter because Mr Al-Fadhli allegedly wanted her to marry his brother’s son, her first cousin.
Police alleged Ms Hmeed grabbed her daughter by the hair and hit her head against a concrete wall multiple times after discovering her daughter on the phone with Mr Ebady.
Mr Al-Fadhli allegedly travelled almost 400km from Sydney to Dubbo to the family’s shop, Alibaba Convenience, after hearing from his wife about the secret phone call.
Ms Hmeed was also accused of biting her daughter and attacking her with a garden hose.
The father was accused of locking a silver chain around his daughter’s neck before repeatedly attacking her with the hose.
Police alleged Ms Al-Fadhli had used a hidden phone to contact police and Mr Ebady to alert them to her condition on two separate occasions on April 20.
Ms Hmeed (pictured) and Mr Al-Fadhli were each charged with one count of kidnapping and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. They were both cleared of all charges
Mr Al-Fadhli was accused of having said: ‘This girl doesn’t ever learn, I hit her once and she still doesn’t understand, I’m going to keep going until she understands.’
It was revealed last July that Rhonda had allegedly backtracked on the claims she made against her parents and told police she invented the story as part of an ‘evil’ revenge plot.
‘I just wanted police to take my parents away because they didn’t accept me or Mohamad, so I wanted to do something evil to get them locked up,’ Rhonda allegedly said.
That comment was made in a retraction to police which was tendered during her mother’s bail application in the NSW Supreme Court.
In her second police statement, Rhonda allegedly said she had threatened to kill herself and pulled out her own hair after her mother found her talking on the phone with Mr Ebady.
She allegedly locked herself in her bedroom and told police she had bitten her own arms and slammed her face into a wall.
‘I wrapped [the] hose around my hand and constantly hit my body… on my arms, my legs, my thighs, my back,’ Rhonda wrote in her second statement.
‘I chained myself with the chain and locked it so that it was really tight. I started screaming hysterically.’
Outside court, Ms Al-Fadhli (above) conceded she had withdrawn her kidnapping claim and agreed it was ‘a very serious complaint’ but declined to discuss the case any further
Ms Al-Fadhli denied she had been pressured to retract her original claims, a suggestion raised by the Crown during her mother’s successful bail application.
The prosecution also raised concerns Mr Al-Fadhli had attempted to coerce his daughter into withdrawing her complaint based on remarks he made in phone calls to a family member from prison.
All charges against Ms Al-Fadhli’s parents were withdrawn by a police prosecutor at Dubbo Local Court on October 9 last year.
Mr Ebady was sentenced in November 2023 to an 18-month intensive correction order after pleading guilty to intentionally importing a prohibited good and two counts of importing a border-controlled drug.
The 23-year-old is the subject of an interim apprehended violence order taken out by police to protect Ms Al-Fadhli. That matter is yet to be heard.
