UK: Soldier tells how false rape claims ruined his life

Article here. Excerpt:

'A SOLDIER arrested for a rape that never happened told how the allegation has ruined his life - as his accuser was jailed for eight months.

The young father's relationship fell apart amid whispering in his community after Philippa Costello claimed she had been attacked in April 2011.

He was arrested and held for 15 hours, had intimate samples taken, and had to wait two months before the investigation against him was dropped.
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She did not confess until she was due to go on trial last month on a charge of doing an act tending or intended to pervert the course of justice.

Her barrister, Alun Jones, told the court yesterday: "She felt stuck in a track. When she found herself in that hole, she kept digging, and she regrets that."

Judge Michael Taylor told Costello: "It is a tragedy for you to be standing before me in court today . . . I regret to say a prison sentence is inevitable.

"Regrettably, offences like this are not uncommon and a clear message has got to be sent out by the courts that those who make such allegations leading to the arrest and detention of perfectly innocent people must be marked out by way of being punished."'