London:
An Asian-origin law student in Britain has been sentenced by a court to two years in jail for falsely claiming that she was raped, a media report said.
Nineteen-year-old Aisha Mather of Hertford Road, Stevenage, told police that she was raped by a man who followed her into an address on North Sherwood Street in Nottingham in January this year, the 'Daily Mail' reported.
But, she pleaded guilty to perverting the cause of justice at Nottingham Crown Court on May 10, claiming she made up the rape allegation as she was "too ashamed" to tell her family she had been thrown out of Nottingham Trent University.
The Nottingham Crown Court heard that Mather had been studying law at the university but had mounting debts and spent "more time socialising than studying". She was ordered to leave after failing her first-year exams.
Describing her actions as "mind-boggling", Judge Tony Mitchell sentenced Mather to two years at a young offenders' institution, the report said.
"You had been playing the fool at university, got yourself into debt, and wanted your parents to dig you out without having to admit the truth. Your behaviour was utterly despicable," the judge said while sentencing her.
In fact, in January, Mather ripped her tights, overturned a coffee table and pulled down curtains to convince police she was attacked at knifepoint and raped in her home by a man who had followed her from the university library.
She believed this would give her an excuse to leave her course and move back in with her parents, Dawn Pritchard, prosecutor, told the court which also heard Mather's account to police included the book's name she was reading in library.
But when police officers checked with library staff and found out that it was not available to read, they began to doubt the version of Mather who subsequently admitted making up the rape allegation.