A BRITISH court sentenced a 16-year-old girl to six months in a young offenders institution for accusing a man of rape because she feared her boyfriend would discover that she had been unfaithful.

The teenager made up the rape allegation after having sex with Alex Lewis, 21, after a night out.

She cannot be identified because of her age but the three men she initially accused of assaulting her were named in court at her trial.



She is believed to be one of the youngest women to be jailed for making a false allegation of rape in Britain.

Lewis was in custody for 36 hours and then spent the next two months on bail facing a lengthy prison sentence for rape before the girl eventually admitted that she had lied when her story was shown to be untrue.

The girl said she made up the allegation because she was worried her boyfriend would be furious if he found out she had had sex with another man.

Lewis’ ordeal began after he took the girl back to his parent’s home in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, where they had sex.

The girl then dressed and left the house and immediately flagged down a police car claiming she had been abducted by three men and forced to perform a sex act.

David Pugh, for the prosecution, said, “She said she was pushed up a metal ladder to an attic bedroom by two men, one of whom held her down. She said both kissed her all over her body and she was raped by one of the men.”

Three men were arrested and intimate samples taken. The other two were released after questioning but Lewis was charged with rape.

The girl’s story unraveled when police examined CCTV footage from the night of the attack showing the girl kissing Lewis before getting into a taxi with him.

Originally published as Girl, 16, jailed over false rape claim