Cheating wife cried rape to hide three-month affair

12-8-2009 United Kingdom:

A CHEATING wife made up a rape claim to hide an affair – leading to two innocent men being arrested and £3,800 wasted on the police investigation.

Helen Dalby sent a text to her husband to say she had been followed home by a stranger and raped in a bedroom – because she felt guilty about having sex with her lover that day.

She had been having a three-month-long affair with him after meeting through a telephone dating service – and he was later arrested during the police investigation.

Dalby, 35, of St Michael's Road, Grimsby, has been given a 10-month suspended prison sentence – with a single condition that she lives for six months in her own home – for admitting perverting the course of justice between August 14 and 22 by making a false rape claim.

Grimsby Crown Court was told she claimed to police that she had been followed, pushed into her house by a stranger and raped in a bedroom.

The investigation led to hours of wasted police time, costing more than £3,800.

Dalby, the court was told, had shown little regard for the lives of the men who wrongly came under suspicion – and that they could have faced a "nightmare".

Judge David Tremberg told her: "Your lies diverted a massive amount of precious police time and resources from proper duty."

Two innocent men had been "locked up and detained for many hours" during the investigation, he continued.

"They no doubt will have wondered what might have happened to them if this nightmare did not go away," he added.

Judge Tremberg said behaviour such as Dalby's risked weakening the cases of genuine rape victims who came forward – and could possibly lead to potentially dangerous offenders being acquitted.

The prosecution pointed out that in other, similar cases, prison sentences of two years or 18 months had been imposed.

But Judge Tremberg claimed this case was "exceptional" because, unlike the cases of other women who had been jailed, Dalby did not act out of "spite or malice". ..Source.. Grimby.co.uk