Woman jailed for false rape claims

THREE PEOPLE ACCUSED FACED NIGHTMARE LASTING MONTHS

- By TOM MACK

A woman evicted from a hotel for causing £450 of damage made a false allegation of rape against the hotel manager and two other guests.

Chloe May, 24, was jailed for 18 months after a judge at Leicester Crown Court heard how she had ruined the lives of her three victims.

She had been staying at a hotel near Loughborough after becoming homeless.

After she was evicted she told police a false story about how she had gone into a room to clean it while working for the hotel manager and that she was forced on to a bed and raped by a male guest while the hotel manager and a man held her down.

At 2am the day after May made the complaint, police raided the hotel manager's home and arrested her on suspicion of rape in front of her husband and teenage son, before holding her in custody for nearly 19 hours.

The male May accused of raping her was held for 11 hours and subject to invasive examinations, while the third victim was held by police for six hours.

At the court hearing the hotel manager read out her victim statement in the witness box.

She said her marriage had ended because she had become a different person after the six weeks she spent as a suspect.

After taking time off work due to her plummeting mental health during the “living nightmare” she was made redundant from the £40,000-a-year job and had to leave the area where she lived.

She said: “Because of the disgusting lies of one person, the course of my life has changed”

The judge heard the man accused of raping May had become suicidal and turned to drink and drugs due to the trauma and had been terrified of losing access to his daughter.