Crown wants jail for false sex claims

The Crown will fight to have a woman who made false rape allegations against police staff put in jail.

Prosecutor Simon Moore said the 44-year-old woman's allegations made against a constable and a non-sworn female office worker were the worst possible made in a "political hot-house".

The woman made the accusations last year, three days after Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas made allegations of historic rape by police officers.

The woman, who has name suppression, was yesterday found guilty of making false allegations of sexual violation and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. The names of the constable - who has since left the force - and the office worker are permanently suppressed.

At the end of a four-day defended hearing in the Hamilton District Court yesterday, Judge Robert Spear said the woman's allegations were completely fabricated and bizarre.

Mr Moore said her offending was at the top of the range and a jail term would be sought.

Outside the court, he said it was not a case of someone making a false allegation of assault then withdrawing it.

"This was a situation where someone made allegations in what was a political hot-house and they were about the most serious kinds of allegations you can make against another human being."

On December 9, 2003, the woman's home was searched by the constable, who found bank cards and credit cards which did not belong to her.

She was taken to the police station and arrested on fraud charges. During her time at the station she asked to go to the toilet but the constable was suspicious she was still concealing something and needed to be searched.

The only woman in the station at the time was the office worker and by the time she was free to do the search the woman had wet herself.

Months later, the woman alleged the office worker had sexually violated her as she was searched.

She alleged the constable had returned to her home four times and indecently assaulted, sexually violated and raped her.

Her allegations sparked a high-level police inquiry run by Counties Manukau police and headed by Detective Inspector Steve Rutherford.

Judge Spear complimented police on the way the woman's allegations had been treated but said "it became increasingly obvious" the claims were untrue.

He said police had been able to track the constable's movements on each day the woman alleged the attacks happened and in one case he was hundreds of kilometres away at his parents' house.

Her case was further damaged by a neighbour who told the court the woman had claimed she was having an affair with a constable who she said would toot as he drove past her home to let her know he would be coming around.

"This points to some sort of strange fascination on behalf of the defendant to Constable X which is not grounded in reality," said Judge Spear.

He said he accepted the office worker's evidence without qualification. "She was obviously deeply offended at the allegations made against her."

Judge Spear remanded the accuser on bail for sentencing on August 8. Outside the court, the office worker said she was relieved it was all over.