Lurgan woman, who falsely claimed to PSNI she had been raped, was 'triggered by previous trauma', Craigavon court hears
A 53-year-old woman, who rang police falsely claiming she had been raped, has appeared before a district judge at Craigavon Magistrates Court for sentencing.
Sharon Linda Adams, aged 53, from Frederick Place, Lough Road in Lurgan, was charged with two counts of wasting police time by knowingly making a false report that an offence has been committed by an unknown man and another count of wasting police time by falsely reporting issues with her personal safety.
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These offences were said to have happened between July 3 and October 22, 2022.
District Judge Michael Ranaghan said he deferred sentence imposing conditions on Adams. He outlined that the offences related to various allegations that Adams had claimed she was raped.
"My understanding is that no victim was identified. No person’s name was given. No one was arrested on foot of those false allegations as they very quickly proved to be false,” said the district judge.
"Police were well aware that Ms Adams had a history of this sort of behaviour,” said the district judge.
Adams’ barrister, Mr Conor Coulter, said since the matter was deferred in October last year “everything seems to have gone quite well”.
She is engaging with her GP and has referred herself to addiction services, the barrister revealed.
"There have been no issues with police, no phone calls to police,” said Mr Coulter, who pointed out the dates of the offences were almost two-and-a-half years ago.
The barrister said his client had been before the court several times previously and had ruled herself out of Community Service and other options, however she hasn’t done that this time.
District Judge Ranaghan said: “In the spirit of open justice, Ms Adams would link this false reporting to previous trauma in her own life she says was retriggered by various incidents.”
He added that it appears Adams has complied ‘almost entirely’ with the court orders around deferral. “I had indicated if you had not done so I would have sent you to prison,” he said.
He issued Adams with a Combination Order including an 18-month Probation Order and 70 hours Community Service.