Compulsive liar who cried rape 11 times is jailed: Her last victim was an innocent man who she simply 'didn't like any more'

Elizabeth Jones, 22, invented her first sex attack in 2004, when aged 13

Her latest victim was targeted because she didn't like him

After he was held for nine hours CCTV disproved her malicious claim



Jailed: Elizabeth Jones, 22, faces 16 months in prison after making 11 false rape claims since 2004

A woman who cried rape was jailed yesterday after a court heard it was her eleventh false claim.

Compulsive liar Elizabeth Jones, 22, was exposed when CCTV footage disproved her allegation against a man she ‘did not like any more’.

She had made her first false rape claim in 2004 when she was just 13, Southampton Crown Court heard.

Between 2005 and 2007 she made another eight allegations which police investigated and dismissed, although she was not prosecuted.

In 2009 she was sentenced to a ten-month detention and training order for a similar offence.

Jones’s latest victim was a boyfriend against whom she made the allegation after the pair had an argument.

Police began an investigation after Jones, from Southampton, persuaded a friend to report she had been assaulted.

She later went to the police station for a medical examination and repeated her allegation. The man was arrested and questioned for nine hours before being released without charge.

Prosecutor Jennie Rickman said he denied rape and detectives later viewed CCTV covering part of the house in which Jones claimed to have been attacked.

The video did not support her story that the man forced himself on her.

Miss Rickman said: ‘There is a history of her making false allegations of this nature and this is the 11th incident.

‘Police had to take her allegation seriously and carried out an appropriate investigation.

‘She was later arrested and accepted she had lied about being raped. She said she did it because she did not like him.’

Jones admitted to attempting to pervert the course of justice and was jailed for 16 months.

Judge Derwin Hope said the offence was not only serious because of ‘the terrible emotional experience’ the man she accused had to endure, but also because it struck at the heart of the criminal justice system. In mitigation, Megan Topliss said Jones had had a disturbed childhood and had been in care.

Fabricated: Southampton Crown Court heard that her latest victim was accused because she did not like him

When confronted by police, Jones immediately accepted she had lied and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, Miss Topliss said.

Outside court, Detective Constable Tim Blanche of Southampton’s Public Protection Department, who led the investigation, said that Jones had a ‘complex life’.

Of the case, he said: ‘There was intimate contact between the couple, but they didn’t live together.’

The pair had an argument and Jones made the fabricated rape allegation. ‘The man was arrested and he gave a statement. He had to live his life with people accusing him of being a rapist,’ Detective Constable Blanche said.

When the man heard Jones had been jailed for 16 months ‘he was disappointed and felt that the time wasn’t long enough after what she put him through’.

Detective Constable Blanche added: ‘After the previous ten false allegations, Judge Hope felt that it was the final straw.

‘The evidence in the case was so conclusive as the CCTV images were so clear. I imagine that with the previous allegations the evidence hasn’t been there.

‘We take rape allegations very seriously and those that make false claims need to face the consequences.