Daughter retracts wild allegations her parents chained her up inside Dubbo convenience store to stop marriage

When police discovered a woman chained up inside a Dubbo convenience store, they arrested her parents and charged them. Now, a court has heard the 21-year-old claims it was she alone who did ‘something evil’.

A young woman has sensationally backflipped on extraordinary allegations her devoutly religious parents beat her and chained her up at their Dubbo convenience store to stop her contacting her boyfriend.

Rhonda Al-Fadhli, 21, had accused her parents Mohamad Musaed Al-Fadhli, 52, and Enam Hmeed, 45, of bashing her with a hose; biting her arms; slamming her face into a concrete wall and padlocking chains around her neck after discovering she was still communicating with Mohamed Ebady, just weeks after they had rejected his proposal of marriage.

They were both arrested and charged with detaining in company with intent, which carries a maximum jail sentence of 25 years on conviction.

However, The Daily Telegraph can reveal in a shock twist, Rhonda has now backtracked on her original allegations, claiming she made the whole story up as part of an “evil” revenge plan against her parents.

The daughter was allegedly detained in a courtyard at the back of makeshift residence behind the store.

“I just wanted police to take my parents away because they didn’t accept me or Mohamed, so I wanted to do something evil to get them locked up,” she said in a retraction statement to police, which was tendered to the NSW Supreme Court during Hmeed’s recent application for bail.

According to prosecution documents, officers were called to the family’s Alibaba Convenience store in Dubbo twice on the evening of April 21, leaving the first time after the parents told them the store was closed and everything was fine.

The officers returned later that evening after receiving further calls - one from Rhonda and one from her boyfriend - reporting that she was being held against her will.

On their second visit, officers noticed a hand against the outside of a bedroom window and went to investigate.

Court documents state they found Rhonda standing in the courtyard, holding onto a silver metal chain that was wrapped around her neck and secured with a combination padlock.

Officers observed injuries on her face and body, which she told them in a recorded interview later that night was from her parents assaulting her throughout the evening, including biting her, pushing her head into a concrete wall and beating her with the end of a garden hose.

Enam Hmeed was granted bail in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney (pictured) last month. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

She claimed they had attacked her after discovering she was secretly contacting Mohamed, against their wishes.

“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,” Rhonda’s father is accused of saying, before allegedly locking the chains around her neck and pulling them so tight she couldn’t breathe.

However, in her second statement to police, given just three days later, Rhonda claimed everything she’d told the detectives that night was a lie.

The court heard she told police she’d become angry, pulled her own hair out and threatened to kill herself after her mother discovered her on the phone to Mohamed that night.

Rhonda claimed she locked herself in the bedroom and the injuries police saw were self-inflicted, saying she deliberately slammed her own chin on the floor, slammed her face into a wall near the bed and bit herself on both arms.

“I wrapped [the] hose around my hand and constantly hit my body … on my arms, my legs, my thighs, my back,” she wrote in the statement.

“I chained myself with the chain and locked it so that it was really tight.

“I started screaming hysterically.”

The Alibaba Convenience store in Dubbo where the daughter was allegedly chained up.

Rhonda said her parents never assaulted her and she had acted out of revenge and anger towards them in making the statement, according to court documents.

She also claimed she had not been pressured to retract her earlier allegations and give the new statement - a matter prosecutors cast doubt over and raised as an issue when it came to considering her mother’s application for bail.

They also raised concerns that Rhonda’s father was attempting to influence his daughter into dropping the charges, pointing to comments he’d made in a series of recorded prison phone calls to a family member.

Justice Andrew Coleman SC agreed to grant Hmeed strict bail on the condition she live with a long-term family friend in western Sydney, report to police three times a week and comply with a nightly curfew.

She is also banned from having any contact with Rhonda under the terms of an apprehended domestic violence order.

Al-Fadhli and Hmeed, who are yet to enter pleas to their charges, will return to court late this year.

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