A STUDENT who lied about being raped in a park in Farnham has had her jail term slashed by top judges.
Maria Rosario Brustenga-Vilaseca told a doctor she had been raped because she was worried how her strict Catholic family would react if they found out about her having pre-marital sex at a party.
The 27-year-old, who is originally from Spain, was jailed for 16 months at Guildford Crown Court in November last year after she admitted perverting the course of justice.
But judges sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court on Tuesday (April 5) cut her sentence to six months, saying the original term was too long.
The court heard Brustenga-Vilaseca was living with a family in Roman Way, Farnham, when she made the false allegation in April 2010.
After a doctor reported her claims of a sex attack to the police, she gave officers a detailed account of being assaulted in Borelli Walk, off South Street in the town.
She said she was walking home from the railway station when a man pushed her to the ground and raped her.
A young local man was arrested on suspicion of the attack but he was later released without charge.
Police eventually discovered that Brustenga-Vilaseca's allegation was false after reviewing CCTV footage around the park, which showed she was not there when she had said she was.
In fact, she had been at a party in Addlestone - 20 miles away from the park - and invented the attack after having consensual sex with a 19-year-old man.
By the time her deception was discovered in early May, 50 members of police staff had taken part in the investigation - including eight officers who spent eight days on door-to-door enquiries.
The force had also viewed 500 hours of CCTV footage, spent £12,000 on forensic investigations and 48 witness statements had been taken.
The court heard the intensive investigation was partly because there had been a genuine complaint of rape in the same area, and officers were therefore worried there might be a serial rapist at large.
Brustenga-Vilaseca tried to withdraw her complaint several times, but was told the matter had to be investigated to protect public safety.
Her lawyers argued her jail term was "excessive", saying she had not made a "typical" false allegation - where a specific person is wrongly identified as a rapist out of malice - and did not foresee that the police would make an arrest.
Allowing the appeal, Judge John Bevan QC described her crime as "an unwillingness to face up to actions she had regretted taking".
The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Toulson and Mr Justice Keith, said the original jail term was too long and reduced her sentence by 10 months.
Link:
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2090671_false_rape_claim_woman_has_sentence_cut
Maria Rosario Brustenga-Vilaseca told a doctor she had been raped because she was worried how her strict Catholic family would react if they found out about her having pre-marital sex at a party.
The 27-year-old, who is originally from Spain, was jailed for 16 months at Guildford Crown Court in November last year after she admitted perverting the course of justice.
But judges sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court on Tuesday (April 5) cut her sentence to six months, saying the original term was too long.
The court heard Brustenga-Vilaseca was living with a family in Roman Way, Farnham, when she made the false allegation in April 2010.
After a doctor reported her claims of a sex attack to the police, she gave officers a detailed account of being assaulted in Borelli Walk, off South Street in the town.
She said she was walking home from the railway station when a man pushed her to the ground and raped her.
A young local man was arrested on suspicion of the attack but he was later released without charge.
Police eventually discovered that Brustenga-Vilaseca's allegation was false after reviewing CCTV footage around the park, which showed she was not there when she had said she was.
In fact, she had been at a party in Addlestone - 20 miles away from the park - and invented the attack after having consensual sex with a 19-year-old man.
By the time her deception was discovered in early May, 50 members of police staff had taken part in the investigation - including eight officers who spent eight days on door-to-door enquiries.
The force had also viewed 500 hours of CCTV footage, spent £12,000 on forensic investigations and 48 witness statements had been taken.
The court heard the intensive investigation was partly because there had been a genuine complaint of rape in the same area, and officers were therefore worried there might be a serial rapist at large.
Brustenga-Vilaseca tried to withdraw her complaint several times, but was told the matter had to be investigated to protect public safety.
Her lawyers argued her jail term was "excessive", saying she had not made a "typical" false allegation - where a specific person is wrongly identified as a rapist out of malice - and did not foresee that the police would make an arrest.
Allowing the appeal, Judge John Bevan QC described her crime as "an unwillingness to face up to actions she had regretted taking".
The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Toulson and Mr Justice Keith, said the original jail term was too long and reduced her sentence by 10 months.
Link:
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2090671_false_rape_claim_woman_has_sentence_cut
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4 comments:
"Her lawyers argued her jail term was "excessive" ... and did not foresee that the police would make an arrest.
So what? 'Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law' not that she of course didn't know what she was doing.
1) She must reimburse society for the lost tax revenue plus a fine.
2) The young man arrested must be compensated financially.
3) When she is not sleeping in jail overnight let her sweep the streets and clean public restrooms.
”Her lawyers argued her jail term was "excessive", saying she had not made a "typical" false allegation - where a specific person is wrongly identified as a rapist out of malice - and did not foresee that the police would make an arrest.”
Well, at least some are starting to acknowledge that FRA’s occur frequently enough that they can now start to be categorized by their relative difference form a “normal” or “typical” FRA.
I do disagree with her attorney that claims of stranger-rapes by unidentified assailants are outside the “norm” for typical FRA’s. It seems that most alibi FRA’s make use of an unidentified (unidentifiable) stranger. In cases where women try to throw their own lovers under the bus, those lovers are inclined to reveal the consensual nature of the illicit sex between them. But, I don’t blame him for trying to frame the argument that way, as it is an admission that FRA’s are numerous.
A more reasonable approach (IMHO) would have been to argue the slighter harms done to an innocent person (yes, I know how that poor guy that got arrested would likely feel about that). I could see this as rational for less jail time (as compared to those who’ve gotten 2 years or less after completely ruining a man’s life), but would like to see her have to make more financial restitution. I like atlas’s list above.
I’ve often felt that while those making FRA’s do certainly deserve some punitive incarceration, I also believe that forcing them to repay actual expenditure and to compensate those harmed, a very strong message could be sent to other women.
If a woman’s lifestyle is substantially impacted by the cost to her of having to repay the damages she’s caused, that’s something that women around her will tend to notice (and be frightened by the prospect of the same happening to them).
I doubt the young man who was arrested will forget
the ordeal
6 months later.
I also wonder how much that young man paid out to a lawyer.
Because you know he did.
I agree with atlas on the compensation comment.
Why send 8 police door to door before checking the facts,unless that is what you had in mind to do in any event that came your way?
The cops like FRA's,it enables behavior otherwise
unthinkable.
In the beginning, when in October 2009 J Henriques stated that 2 years was mandatory for any woman found guilty of perverting the course of justice by way of making a false accusation of rape, there was no provision whatsoever for excuses, you perverted the course of justice or you didn't...
So you see what happens, the pressure from the feminists and manginas is constant, it wears everything down.
I have now come to believe that the only solution is a total bankruptcy of society / state, and building a better world out of the ashes.
Burn baby burn
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