20 Months? Is That All?

A woman who twice falsely cried rape against an ex-boyfriend has been jailed for 20 months.

Yup. Twice! They let her off the first one, of course:

Beverley Brandreth, 20, first lied that he had raped her in February 2010 when she said she was pregnant and it caused her to lose her baby.

That allegation fell apart when it was discovered she was not pregnant at the time but prosecutors advised that no charge be brought against her.

She pushed her luck too far, though:

Last November she made a second claim to police that he had dragged her into woods where she was beaten unconscious and raped, and he threatened to kill her if she reported the matter.

Her lies were unmasked again when the victim later proved he was in a DVD store with his new girlfriend when Brandreth claimed he attacked her.

He proved..? Isn't that the police's job?

We are spared the defence's babble in the local paper, but the Beeb helpfully adds it:

In court, defence lawyer Rebecca Tanner said Brandreth was "a complicated young woman, someone who has complex needs and a complex psychological profile".

She got what she 'needs'. Well, not enough of it, but still...

We get the same old boilerplate from the police, of course:

Det Con Chris Aunins said her claims "make a mockery of the experiences suffered by genuine victims".

"In investigating this false claim, officers wasted countless hours interviewing witnesses and on paperwork when they could have been dealing with a genuine emergency," he said.

"Not only that, but the man she alleged was responsible had to spend time in a custody cell, wrongly accused of an offence he did not commit.

"Unfairly, he has been put through a tremendous amount of stress when he is completely innocent."

And is that all her fault? Or...might some of it be yours?

H/T: Curmudgeon via email