Woman who cried rape walks free

London: A woman who accused a student of rape after dragging him into a public toilet for sex was spared jail on Monday.

Bisexual Sarah-Jane Hilliard, 20, seduced Grant Bowers when the two bumped into each other during a night out clubbing.

On Monday Bowers, also 20, attacked the "ridiculous" sentence after Hilliard received 12 months in jail, suspended for two years. She had denied perverting the course of justice.

Bowers — who says he is now afraid to speak to women — said: "It's absolutely ridiculous. That's not even a slap on the wrist. She's been let off and I'm still having to sneak around because there are still people after me who think I did it."

It was more than a week after his arrest that Bowers discovered he was not to be charged. But during that time Hilliard, who was in a relationship with a woman, contacted the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in the hope of claiming up to £7,500 (Dh43,138).

Bowers's father Tony, 48, said: "My son was facing up to ten years in prison for rape on the strength of her lies. The least I expected was for her to have been given a prison sentence. My son is the victim and he has lost his freedom yet she has still got hers."

Hilliard, from Basildon in Essex, told police she bumped into Bowers at a nightclub called Liquid in the town in July 2008. She claimed to have shared a taxi with him before stopping at the railway station to use the toilet. The telephone sales worker, who had been drinking, said she went into a cubicle and the next thing she remembered was waking with her underwear and trousers around her ankles.

Text message

She claimed to have realised she had been raped only when Bowers sent her a text the following day in which he mentioned they had "gone all the way".

Hilliard's lie began to unravel when police were unable to find CCTV footage of the pair leaving the club. A friend admitted they had been at another nightclub called Colors and detectives found CCTV evidence of Hilliard and Bowers, who was 19 at the time, kissing and holding hands.