False sex complaints earn 5 months' jail

A Waikato woman has been jailed for making false complaints that she was raped by a policeman and sexually assaulted by his colleague.

Sally Marie Inglis, 44, was sentenced to five months jail at the Tauranga District Court yesterday after being found guilty of two charges of making a false complaint to police.

Judge Robert Spear said the offending was "at the very highest end of the scale" and a prison sentence was required.

"You need to spend some time in prison to contemplate why you are back there."

Judge Spear said the sentence, two-and-a-half months' imprisonment for each charge, was influenced by the woman's continued insistence that the claims were true despite clear evidence to the contrary and by the devastating effect they had had on the victims.

On April 14 last year, the woman told police she was sexually assaulted by a female non-sworn police employee when arrested on December 9, 2003, and that she was raped several times by the arresting officer two months later.

The female victim, spoken to after the sentence, said it had been the most traumatic experience of her life, and while prison was appropriate, it would not "give us back what she has taken from us".

Prosecutor Simon Moore said the case was made more serious by the cynical timing of the complaint - three days after Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas made allegations of historic rape by police officers.

When Inglis was convicted in June after a four-day defended hearing, 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.

Inglis was ordered to undergo assessment and treatment for psychological issues and alcohol abuse and denied leave to seek home detention.