False rape claim woman tells jury: 'It was all in my mind' Published duration 21 June 2019

A woman who falsely claimed she was raped by a taxi driver told a jury "it's all in my mind".

Laura Hood, 27, from Stockport, claimed cab driver Haroon Yousaf, 29, raped her after a night out in January 2017.

But the cab's tracker device proved her account was untrue, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

Ms Hood, who denies perverting the course of justice, told a jury she "wished she knew" why she believed it had happened.

She told prosecutor Geoff Whelan that she had physically felt she had been raped and said: "It was all so real. It's all in my mind."

'Can't be true'

Mr Whelan said: "I agree it is in your mind - the question this jury has to decide is whether you were lying."

He accused Ms Hood of making up a generic description of an Asian male because it would "get some sympathy and it will never get any further that".

She replied: "I would never do anything like that."

Ms Hood told her barrister Thomas McKail she now accepted the rape did not happen.

When asked if she had any explanation why she believed it had, she replied: "I wish I knew. I wish I could explain why something so clear in my head... obviously it can't be true."

The court has heard that Mr Yousaf was arrested in front of colleagues at Manchester Piccadilly railway station taxi rank on the evening of 8 January and kept in custody for 20 hours before he was bailed.

The trial continues.

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