Jail for woman who falsely cried 'rape'

Judge speaks of "nightmare" for men wrongly accused by Emma Blunden

A WOMAN who falsely accused four men of raping her has been jailed for two years.

Twenty-one-year-old Emma Blunden, of College Piece, Mortimer, sobbed as she was led to the cells at Reading Crown Court this morning (Monday).

She initially accused a man named Jamie Mabey of pinning her down and raping her at Newbury's Two Saints hostel, where both were staying at the time, on July 26 2008.

Mr Mabey was arrested and detectives launched a thorough investigation, the court was told, before realising that Blunden was lying to prevent a boyfriend discovering that the sex was consensual.

She was charged with perverting the course of justice but then, while on bail awaiting trial, accused three other men - Shane Roberts, Craig Pilime and Colin McDonagh, of gang raping her at a house in Reading on February 4 2009.

During her trial last December she continued to maintain that all four men had attacked her but was convicted by a jury of two counts of perverting the course of justice.

In mitigation Nicholas Doherty, for Blunden, said his client had been suffering from depression and appealed to Judge John Reddihough not to jail her because of her “personality defects.”

He added: “What she really needs is help...a prison sentence would exacerbate matters.”

However Judge Reddihough said: “False allegations of rape have two particularly serious consequences: firstly the person falsely accused faces the nightmare of being arrested, kept in custody for many hours facing an allegation which he fears may not be successfully refuted and which could lead to him being wrongly convicted and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment; secondly, they have a serious effect on the administration of justice in cases of rape.

“Concern is often expressed over what is said to be the low conviction rate when the dreadful crime of rape is alleged. Juries have a difficult decision to make and publicity over cases such as this only serves to increase the plight of those woman who are genuine victims of rape and makes such an offence harder to prove.”

He added: “These were two quite seperate occasions where you were making false allegations. In the first case a young man was kept in custody for 17 hours and had the allegation hanging over him for weeks. You deliberately invented that allegation against him in a misguided attempt to win back a former boyfriend.

“While on bail you made further, false allegations......it may be in that case you made the allegations because you were ashamed of your own sexual conduct in relation to these men.”

Commenting after Blunden's conviction, Det Con Clare Larkworthy, who led the investigation into the Newbury incident, said: “False reports of rape distract officers from dealing with victims of genuine crimes.

“There was significant financial cost to both investigations and a number of police officers and civilian staff hours have been taken up by investigating these incidents. In total, four men were arrested as a direct result of Blunden's allegations.

“This case shows that while we will carry out thorough investigation into all reported rapes we will not tolerate people making false allegations.”

Det Sgt Elton Evans, who led the investigation into the alleged incident in Reading said: “As a result of Blunden's allegations three men were arrested and had to go through some intimate forensic checks.

“We take every single report of rape very seriously. Each report is dealt with by detectives and other specialist officers who conduct a full investigation at great public expense. The investigation of any false or malicious allegation diverts valuable resources away from genuine crimes with genuine victims. We will take action against anyone who reports a false crime and wastes police time.”