Yahoo News Serial liar jailed for false rape claims loses appeal against conviction
A woman jailed for a string of fake sexual assault and rape accusations in 2017 has lost an appeal to overturn her conviction.
Jemma Beale, 27, from Bedfont, west London, was handed a 10-year prison sentence after making false claims of sexual assault and rape against 15 men.
Her claims led to one man being wrongly jailed and convicted of rape, while another fled the country.
On Thursday, Ms Beale, 27, asked senior judges at the Court of Appeal to overturn her conviction and maintained that she is innocent.
Her lawyers told the court that the judge hadn’t warned the jury about the ‘myths and stereotypes’ which surround false rape claim cases.
Gillian Jones QC told the Court of Appeal: ‘The learned judge erred because he failed to give a direction about the dangers of myths and stereotypes.
‘She was the subject of extensive media scrutiny in which she was vilified.
‘The effect of which might have been to further prejudice the jury in the absence of such a direction.
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‘This reporting compounded or could have compounded these myths and stereotypes which were never corrected by way of judicial guidance to the jury.’
But on Thursday afternoon, Ms Beale lost her appeal against her conviction and sentence., with judges saying she showed ‘no indication of remorse’.
After a five-week trial at Southwark Crown Court in July 2017, a jury found Ms Beale guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Detectives first became suspicious when one of Beale’s previous partners claimed a man had been wrongly jailed for raping her in November 2010.
Mahad Cassim was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2012, but subsequently had his conviction quashed in 2015.
Ms Beale then told police she was the victim of two sexual assaults in July 2012 and fabricated similar allegations against six other men in 2013, her trial heard.
