‘Serial liar’ who fabricated rape and sexual assault claims loses conviction appeal
A “serial liar” who invented a string of false rape and sexual assault allegations has failed in a bid to clear her name.
Jemma Beale, 27, claimed she had been seriously sexually assaulted by six men and raped by nine in four different encounters over the space of three years.
Beale (pictured), of Bedfont, west London, was jailed for 10 years in August 2017 at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of four counts of perjury and four counts of perverting the course of justice.
She challenged her conviction at the Court of Appeal on Thursday, with her lawyers arguing it was “unsafe”.
Gillian Jones QC, representing Beale, argued the trial judge should have given the jury directions about the “danger of assumptions, myths and stereotypes” relating to victims of sexual offences.
She also argued that the loss of her anonymity, which led to intense media scrutiny, caused prejudice to Beale’s defence.
But, rejecting her appeal bid, Lady Justice Hallett said such directions usually applied to victims, not defendants, and that even if the judge had given guidance it would not have helped Beale.
Sitting with Mr Justice Warby and Sir John Royce, the judge said: “The appellant was accused of being a serial liar who fabricated complaints, mostly of a sexual nature.
“The prosecution had a strong case to prove the charges against her, based not on one person’s word against another, but on independent and credible evidence.”
The judges also dismissed an appeal by Beale against her sentence, saying hers was an “exceptional case”.
Lady Justice Hallett said that, as well as the men Beale falsely accused, the “system of justice” had suffered significant harm.
She added: “The total of 10 years, although stern, we are satisfied cannot be described as excessive.”
The judge told the court that one of the men Beale accused of rape in 2010, Mahad Cassim, was tried twice and jailed for seven years.
His conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2015 after his defence team and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were alerted to serious doubts over Beale’s allegations.
She had been awarded £11,000 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) and had told a former girlfriend she had lied to get the money, the court heard.
Lady Justice Hallett said: “The idea that a woman could send an innocent man to prison for years solely so she could obtain compensation beggars belief.”
Detectives launched an investigation into Beale in December 2013 after they learned of a claim by one of her former girlfriends that a man had been wrongly jailed.
Police said the information came to light while investigating an allegation by Beale that she had been raped by a number of men in November 2013.
Officers carried out a review of four investigations into allegations of rape and sexual assault made by Beale and found common discrepancies and similar circumstances within the allegations.
She had also falsely claimed that she was groped by a stranger, Noam Shahzad, in a pub in July 2012.
She said she was then gang-raped by him and a group of other men, and even injured herself to back up her claims she had been assaulted with barbed wire.
Beale fabricated similar allegations against six other men in 2013.
She claimed two strangers sexually assaulted her close to her home before she was put through another gang rape attack by four others two months later.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2019, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Gareth Fuller / PA Wire.
