False rape accused jailed

SIX MONTHS IN JAIL FOR FALSE RAPE ALLEGATION
A WOMAN, who falsely accused her boyfriend of raping her, was jailed for six months by a sheriff today.
Sheriff Andrew Berry told Cheryl Fleming that it was “a very serious matter” and added that a huge employment of police manpower had been involved in investigating a serious allegation which was unfounded.
Wick Sheriff Court was told, previously, that the person she had a falsely accused was a man with whom she had been in an off-and-on relationship over a period of 10 years. Both had been drinking on the day in question, December 6, last year, and they had been intimate.
However, a dispute arose, which ended with Fleming being asked to leave her partner’s house in Thurso. She went to a local takeaway where she asked for the police to be contacted. When officers arrived, she made the allegation of rape, naming her boyfriend who was subsequently detained.
Fleming, 38, of Huddart Street, Wick, attended at Thurso police station and the usual procedures were followed, involving a medical examination, and forensic procedures involving clothes etc. Samples were also taken from the boyfriend. The following morning, however, she retracted the allegation, telling the police that sex had taken place but by mutual consent.
The accused said she had been angry after they disagreed and made the allegation but realised, later, that it had been “the wrong thing to do” and wanted to make “a clean breast of things”.
Sheriff Berry said it was not the first time that Fleming had made a false allegation and added that her record showed that all other non-custodial sentences had been tried and that in the public interest, the only remaining option was a prison sentence.