20 months in jail for the prison officer who cried rape
A PRISON officer has been jailed after making a false allegation that she was raped by a taxi driver.
Aspiring model Victoria Hoynes, 27, was sentenced to 20 months for claiming she had been assaulted in a cab on a Bank Holiday weekend.
Two drivers, both hardworking family men, were thrown under suspicion and questioned by police.
One was arrested before it was established no rape had ever happened.
When confronted by officers, Hoynes at first said: “Why would I risk my job and my lifestyle over this?”
But later she confessed she had made the attack up after drinking and being depressed at a relationship break-up.
Tatters
Jailing her at Durham Crown Court, Judge James Adkin said much effort had gone into proving her “wicked complaint” was a complete fabrication that had impacted on the drivers and policing resources.
Hoynes worked with some of Britain’s worst sex offenders at Category A HMP Frankland in Durham.
She entered Durham’s Next Top Model contest in 2013 and Miss Newcastle beauty pageant the following year.
But her modelling dreams were left in tatters by the sentence she received after admitting acts intended to pervert the course of justice.
The court heard police were called at 3.49am on May 26 last year by Hoynes’ mother.
She reported that her daughter had returned home distressed from a night out, saying she had been raped by a taxi driver and dumped in the grounds of a hospital.
Prosecutor Shaun Dodds said that in her initial interview Hoynes changed her description of the driver from being an Asian in his 40s to a man in his 20s with spiky hair.
Two cabbies were quizzed but one had been carrying another passenger at the time.
Dashcam footage proved the cabbie who did carry Hoynes had not touched her and that she got out unaided.
Hoynes quit her job with the Ministry of Justice as her story began to unravel.
Adam Birkby, for Hoynes, told the court she wanted to make “sincere apologies” to both implicated drivers and to the police.
But Judge Adkin warned such behaviour could affect the prospects of genuine rape victims getting proper justice.