A WOMAN who made a false allegation of rape against a serving Dyfed-Powys Police officer has been jailed for 27 months.
PC Paul Morgan thought about committing suicide ‘on a daily basis’ after he was arrested and suspended following a false complaint by Samantha Murray-Evans.
PC Morgan was under suspicion for five weeks before fellow officers were able to prove that she had been lying.
Murray-Evans, aged 44, of Birchgrove, Swansea, admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Catherine Richards, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court the pair had met online in October, 2014.
In her complaint to police she said she had agreed to go to his house because he was a police officer and she felt safe.
She said that as soon as she arrived PC Morgan began to kiss her and pushed her onto a sofa despite her making it clear she did not want to have sex.
Then, she claimed, he raped her.
The following day, she said, she realised she had lost a ring at his home and went back. But he said he couldn’t find it and she left.
PC Morgan was arrested, kept in a police cell over night and suspended from duty.
Miss Richards said officers investigating the complaint discovered that in the days following Murray-Evans had sent PC Morgan a series of Whats App messages, one describing the sex as the best she had ever had and telling him that it had made her toes curl.
In another she attached a photograph of one of breasts naked.
Miss Richards said that PC Morgan told police that sex had been consensual and that she had initiated it, and that she had asked for more sex after visiting him to retrieve the lost ring.
PC Morgan, who has a bravery award for pulling a suicidal woman out of the River Tawe, was told, five weeks after being arrested, that the complaint would not be pursued.
But he suffered long term harm and was allowed to read a statement to the court.
PC Morgan said the false allegation had devastated his life and that he had considered suicide daily. In fact, the thought that ‘suicide was a way out was all that kept me going’.
He said he had had to put up with walking through Llanelli and hearing people accusing him of being a rapist.
He now suffered from depression and anxiety and was off work sick.
Jim Davis, representing Murray-Evans, said she still maintained that she had been raped but wanted to admit the charge.
The court heard that Murray-Evans had a conviction for molesting a former partner by making contact despite a court order not to.
Judge Paul Thomas told Murray-Evans it was difficult to think of a more wicked lie to tell, especially about a police officer.
Judge Thomas said he was convinced that Murray-Evans had wanted a relationship and had devised a ‘vicious and sinister’ way of getting her own back after PC Morgan rejected her.
The lie, he added, had been planned and calculated and she had been callous and persistent during an 80 minute police interview.
“The worrying fact is that if you had not sent those WhatsApp messages to him it would have been your word against his with an unpredictable outcome.
“You knew it would have a devastating effect on him and I believe that the fact that he was a police officer was in your thoughts.
“He suffered five weeks of torment and even contemplated suicide. The consequences remain with him three years later.”
Judge Thomas said the damage went further–false complaints helped to undermine the credibility of genuine rape victims.
And he noted that Murray-Evans had not shown a trace of remorse.
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