'I shouldn't have lied I'm sorry': Teenager is spared jail after writing to police confessing she agreed to sex with man she accused of rape

Sophie Hooper, 19, accused an unnamed man of raping her after a night out



But two months later she confessed to police that she had lied

She was spared jail at Southampton Crown Court today

A teenager who put a man through two months of torment by falsely accusing him of rape has been spared jail.



Sophie Hooper, 19, told police she had been forced to have sex against her will with a man she had only just met in the pub.



But two months later her conscience got the better of her and she wrote a letter to the police confessing she had lied about the allegations.



Hooper had claimed she went with the unnamed man to his home where he held her down by the neck on his bed and raped her.



After she called police, who came out in the middle of the night, the man was arrested and held in custody for more than seven hours.



Sophie Hooper, 19, told police she had been raped but two months later confessed that she had lied. She escaped a jail sentence at Southampton Crown Court today

SHOULD RAPE SUSPECTS HAVE ANONYMITY?

Victims and alleged victims of rape have been granted anonymity since 1976 to spare women from humiliation and encourage more victims to report attacks.



The law originally gave the same protection to those charged with rape.



But anonymity for defendants was withdrawn in 1988 after judges protested that it prevented police from appealing for witnesses.



Judges also said that the acquittal of a man charged with rape was enough to clear his name and reputation.



Maura McGowan, a deputy High Court judge and chief of the professional body for barristers, recently called for the identities of men accused of rape and other sex crimes to be kept secret unless they are found guilty in court.



The leading lawyer said the names of those charged with sex offences should not be released because the crimes carry 'such a stigma’. But John Cooper, a human rights barrister, disagreed with this and said anonymity for people accused of sex crimes is 'unworkable'.

But there was no truth in Hooper's allegations. She didn't admit this for over two months, before she eventually told police she was lying.



Southampton Crown Court heard how police began investigating and found inconsistencies with her version of events.



Hooper accused the man of raping her in June 2011 but by August that year officers told him he wouldn't face prosecution.

] A short time later police received a letter from Hooper, who has just become a mum, in which she said 'maybe calling it rape was wrong'.



The teenager from Eastleigh, Hampshire, was later arrested in September 2011 on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.



But it wasn't until January 2012 that 'she fully accepted the lies she had told' said prosecutor Carolyn Branford-Wood. Hooper revealed how, in fact, the pair had gone to his home from the pub, began kissing and the sex 'just happened', adding she didn't say yes or no.



When she left his home she returned to the pub run by friends of her family who told her she had been raped and to call 999.



In court Hooper apologised by saying 'I shouldn't have lied, I am sorry' and added that if she could turn the clock back she would.



The court was told how the man described in a victim impact statement feeling 'sick to the stomach' and anxious following the accusation.



He was also unable to go out because, even though he knew he was innocent, he felt he would be tarred.



He said he could not sleep properly and resorted to taking anti-depressants.



Mitigating for Hooper, Fern Russell said it was not a sophisticated plot - she was in a state and made a bad decision out of stupidity rather than malice.

Recorder Stuart Jones QC handed the teenager an eight-month prison term suspended for two years.



He told her she was lucky not to have gone to jail for what the court deems a very serious offence.

Justice: The pair were taken to Southampton Crown Court after an anonymous tip-off by a member of the public to the Department for Work and Pensions

Mr Jones said: 'The consequences for the man accused must have been traumatic in the extreme.'



He added that Hooper had just come out of a difficult period of adolescence and her mental health was far from robust.

