Dated 25th July 2009 10.00 hrs
A woman whose 'vile lies' nearly drove a man to suicide has been jailed for perverting the course of justice. Louise Johnson accused Andrew Tutty of rape, attempted rape, assault and harrassment after he ended their brief affair.
She took out injunctions against him and made his life 'hell', a court heard. But Wolverhampton Crown Court heard at that precise time Mr Tutty was accused of attempted rape and assault by Johnson, he was filmed on CCTV boarding a train in
Gosport
, Hampshire, with his son.
Judge Nicholas Syfret QC told Johnson the two arrests had a 'huge impact' on the life of Mr Tutty. He said: 'He felt suicidal and it affected his work. These allegations were not only embarrassing but they meant he was suspended from doing his job.'
As he jailed her for 18 months, the judge went on to say there were people who felt 'there is no smoke without fire' and, while he was completely innocent, they would believe there was some truth in the allegations.
'There was not a word of truth in what you said,' Judge Syfret told Johnson.
'A colossal strain was put on police resources while they investigated these complaints and you also undermined the causes of genuine people who had been the subject of serious complaints.'
He told her only a custodial sentence could be justified because the offence she had committed made it notoriously difficult for women who had been raped to get justice.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said:
'This case illustrates perfectly the opportunity for false and malicious accusations now afforded by our laws on rape, since the need for corroborating evidence was removed by John Major's administration in 1994.
'Rape is now decided on a his word against hers basis, and since women are viewed as more vulnerable and are in general better at social interaction, the scope for wrongful convictions is massive. Equally, more articulate and plausible men are getting away with rape because police and prosecutors no longer need to spend precious time finding the corroborating evidence which would secure a sound conviction.
'The obvious Christian answer would be for men to avoid situations where they are alone with women, but not all men have that degree of faith, and they live in a society where women dress like prostitutes even on a routine night out. There have been numerous cases of young women having too much to drink, engaging in sexual activity, waking up the next morning feeling they have been taken advantage of and then crying rape. The man concerned probably thought she was leading him on, or just 'up for it.' At other times, a woman acts out of spite against the man involved or men in general.
'In this case, Louise Johnson's barrister said she had suffered abuse as a child, which apparently turned her against men in general, given the 'string of allegations', including another accusation of rape, she had made over the course of some 12 years.
'Men are in prison right now for crimes of rape they did not commit, and that is an injustice equally as bad as anything the Guildford 4 or
Birmingham
6 suffered. Yet you won't find any of the politicians or media who are normally to the fore in the field of human rights taking up their cases. This story did not appear in the Guardian or the Independent, for example, only in the Daily Mail.
'You certainly won't catch any feminists springing to the defence of men wrongly accused, because they think women are untainted by original sin and should always be believed. The ludicrously-named 'Women Against Rape' (are there women in favour of rape?) will remain silent, probably regarding all men as potential rapists anyway.
'Even when a man is eventually acquitted, or the case against him is dropped, he has probably already lost his job and his reputation. His friends and his family may stand by him, but they are equally likely to disown him. Neighbours will avoid him, scowl, or worse. He will have been arrested, finger-printed, had a DNA swap taken - which is kept, even if he is found to be innocent - and treated by the police, not as innocent until proven guilty, but as a common criminal.
'In this case, the man accused, Andrew Tutty, was suspended from his job as a care worker. He had to rely on video footage to prove his innocence, which only came about by chance, or by the grace of God if we prefer. He says he 'went through hell' for two years, and since hell is a place of punishment, the description is quite apt. He had the undoubted blessing of being supported by his friends and his family, and says that only that kept him going.
'It is about time we at Christian Voice started collecting these cases (please let us know through our website if you have a story to tell) in order to press for a change in the law, to include the need for corroborating evidence once again. Until that happens, injustice will continue to be done, and it won't always end as well as this has.
