Cheating Wife Jailed for Crying Rape


An unfaithful wife has been jailed for 12 months after crying rape to cover up a night of passion with a stranger.

Merete Underwood, who abandoned her husband and young son during an evening out, panicked when she realised her one night stand had resulted in a missing person's report to police.

So she promptly pointed the finger of suspicion at her unfortunate lover to prevent her husband discovering the truth.

The alleged rapist, a distraught interior designer, not only spent 24 hours in a cell but then had the prospect of prosecution hanging over him for three months, London's Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court was told.

Even after his 32-year-old blonde accuser was charged with perverting the course of justice, she continued to lie for a further year.

It was only as the jury was about to be sworn in to try her that the Norwegian national, of Kingston, south-west London, finally confessed.

Underwood, who is now being divorced by her husband Toby, wept as the judge said her last minute plea of guilty and previous good character could not save her from jail.

Earlier, Joanne Hacking, prosecuting, told the court that the evening of February 25 last year began innocently enough when Underwood and her two-year-old son met her husband after he had finished work.

A few drinks in one pub was followed by several more in another. But then Underwood gave her husband the slip to enjoy a night of passion with a man she later admitted chatting up in a wine bar.

She cried rape when her worried husband called the police after Underwood failed to return home that evening.