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Her sex attack lies put an innocent man behind bars - now she knows how he felt.

Riah Toms made up an allegation of a sexual assault against Ryan Scott in a plot to explain why her boyfriend had brutally battered him outside a nightclub.

Badly-injured Mr Scott was arrested by police and held in police custody for seven hours and spent a month on bail terrified of a possible trial.

But when CCTV was viewed, police eventually realised Mr Scott was completely innocent and Toms was lying.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the 19-year-old mother made the false claim to try to explain why her boyfriend Aaron Cammock had attacked Mr Scott outside Arizona bar in Sunderland on April 4 last year.

Toms had hoped her fake allegation may have saved her boyfriend from going to jail for the violence he used.

She failed as last May, Cammock, 20, of Goschen Street, Southwick, Sunderland was jailed for 33 months for his vicious attack on the victim, who was punched and kicked in the head.

Toms sobbed in the dock as she joined her violent partner behind bars for six weeks for her fake assault claims.

Judge John Evans told her: “What you did was very wrong and it had the impact of putting an entirely innocent individual in custody for a number of hours.

“He was released but he faced the possibility of a quite improper prosecution for some time thereafter. That is just unacceptable.

“It is clear from what you said to the probation officer, you had discussed this very issue of what you were going to do in the event of the police arresting your partner. It is clear you planned to make a false allegation.

“It was a bad decision you made to file a false account of what happened in the hope that would in some way improve the position of your partner and the prospect he faced of a custodial sentence for what was a very serious and completely unjustified assault on an individual.”

Prosecutor Kevin Wardlaw told the court Toms claimed to police that the man who was beaten by her boyfriend last April had sexually assaulted her both inside and outside the city centre bar.

After already being the victim of the brutal beating, Mr Scott was then astonished to be arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and spent seven hours in custody.

It was not until May that he was told a decision had been made that no further action would be taken against him.

Mr Wardlaw said: “The Crown’s case is neither of the defendant’s allegations occurred.”

Toms, of Ferryboat Lane, Hylton Castle, Sunderland, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

Jamie Adams, defending, said she is a vulnerable woman who was the victim of bullying in the past.

Mr Adams added: “Even the prospect of a few weeks in custody terrifies her.”