Prison officer jailed for falsely claiming Asian cabbie raped her
A PRISON officer has been jailed for falsely claiming that she was raped by an Asian taxi driver.
As a result of aspiring model Victoria Hoynes’s accusations, two innocent cabbies were investigated by police.
Hoynes, 27, worked with sex offenders at HMP Frankland in County Durham, and took part in beauty pageants in her spare time, including Durham’s Next Top Model in 2013 and Miss Newcastle the following year.
After her bogus rape accusation, one taxi driver was arrested, Durham Crown Court heard. However, dashcam footage from the cab of the other driver disproved Hoynes’s story.
She initially claimed an Asian man in his forties had attacked her in the front passenger seat of his taxi before pushing her out into the grounds of a hospital.
A friend who picked Hoynes up noticed she had twigs in her hair and scratches on her clothing.
Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said Hoynes then changed her description of her attacker, telling police he was in his twenties, with spiked, gelled hair.
A driver who was on duty that night was arrested. But he denied the offence, insisting he was taking another passenger to a different town at the time.
A second driver was interviewed after it emerged he drove Hoynes to Lanchester Road Hospital, in Durham, where she claimed the attack took place in the early hours of May 26 last year.
But he said he had dropped her off and driven straight home. Police realised he was telling the truth when footage from his dashcam showed Hoynes getting out of his taxi unaided.
Mr Dodds said: ‘ On the camera, she can be seen approaching the taxi and exiting it.
‘A reflection shows the driver looking at his mobile phone and she gets out unaided. There is clearly no contact and the rape simply did not take place.
‘ The status of the inquiry changed from her being a victim to her being a suspect.
‘Had the dashcam footage not been seized she would still have been treated as a victim.’
She only changed her account when the dashcam footage was shown to her, police said. She had been drinking and taking drugs the night she said she was raped, the court heard.
Hoynes, of Witton Gilbert, near Durham, admitted acts intended to pervert the course of justice.
Adam Birkby, defending, said: ‘She accepted full responsibility for the false allegations and wishes to make it clear the two drivers are innocent and apologises to them and their families. She is extremely remorseful.’
He said a psychologist found her offending was ‘ the unconscious management of a depressive illness’ caused by a traumatic relationship break-up.
Jailing Hoynes for 20 months, Judge James Adkin said her false claims risked preventing genuine rape victims from getting justice, adding: ‘This type of offence can affect the prospects of cases where it may be finely balanced as to whether women get the justice they deserve.
‘I find it difficult to see how distress about a break-up would cause you to make such a wicked complaint.’
‘A wicked complaint’