Only six months detention for false rape accusation

The guy would have gone to prison for years if convicted

A teenager whose "wicked lies" condemned an innocent man to 10 weeks in prison after falsely claiming she had been raped was locked up for six months today. Katie Davis, 18, had sex with Frank Chisholm at his house after meeting him as he was walking home from a night drinking on 6 March last year. But during a week-long trial at Lewes Crown Court, a jury heard she invented the false rape allegation as she feared she could be pregnant.

A police investigation led to former railway labourer Mr Chisholm being charged with rape after DNA evidence linked him to Davis. But Mr Chisholm, 24, denied raping her, saying they had consensual sex at his home in Battle Road, St Leonards. He was held on remand at Lewes Prison for 10 weeks before scientific evidence emerged which led to the case against him being dropped. Davis showed no emotion as she was sentenced to six months in a young offenders' institute by Judge Richard Brown. He said: "It's clear to me that your lies have had, and will continue to have, a dramatic effect on his life. "His family have also suffered considerably. You were responsible for him being in prison for several weeks and when you pursued those wicked lies you put him through the trauma of giving evidence in your trial."

Davis, of Blackman Avenue, St Leonards, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice by making a false claim of rape, after the jury spent an hour deliberating following her trial last month. Jurors heard the rape charge against Mr Chisholm was dropped after fibres found on Davis's fleece were forensically examined and showed her jacket had come into prolonged contact with the duvet cover on Mr Chisholm's bed. The Crown claimed the evidence discounted Davis's repeated claim that she was raped in an alleyway.

But Davis - who was aged 16 at the time of her rape claim - stuck by her story in the face of the forensic evidence and insisted she had never met Mr Chisholm before, nor been to his house. Davis also failed to explain other inconsistencies in her version of events. Detective Constable Shoni Grant, of Sussex Police, told the trial that Davis had initially said her attacker confronted her from the front but later claimed he had approached from her righthand side. In addition, Davis claimed she had struggled with the rapist but later said she had not resisted him. Davis also failed to explain two witness sightings of her walking up Blackman Avenue with Mr Chisholm's arm around her before the alleged attack took place.

DC Grant told the jury that the series of discrepancies and inconsistencies in Davis's accounts of the incident led police to cast "serious doubt" on her allegation. Mr Chisholm was not in court to see Davis sentenced today, but in his evidence at the earlier trial he had told the court that the allegations against him had made him "angry and upset".

Report here



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)