Leeds fake rape accuser warned jail will be 'inevitable'

Liam Smith will be sentenced in March

A "fantasist" who made false rape allegations against six innocent men is facing prison.

Liam Smith, also known as James Robertson or James Smith, made a total of seven untrue reports to the police against six different victims, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

He was found guilty of seven counts of intending to pervert the course of justice and will be sentenced in March.

Judge Penny Moreland warned him a jail term would "inevitable".

Prosecutors said Smith, 27, of Armley Ridge Road, Leeds, was a "troubled young man" who had a problem separating "fact from fiction" and may have made the damaging claims out of a "desire for attention".

As a result, six men, who had consensual encounters with Smith in Newcastle, Wearside and South Tyneside, faced the trauma of being wrongly accused and questioned or even arrested, prosecutor Anne Richardson said.

She said Smith started a chain of police investigations which were "not only unnecessary and time consuming but which caused appalling suffering and anxiety for those innocent men who were accused by him."

'Desire for attention'

Ms Richardson said Smith was "perhaps a fantasist" or had a "latent desire for attention", and made the claims between 2018 and 2021.

One man, who Smith made two false claims about, spent 14 hours at a police station and had to provide intimate samples for analysis, the court heard.

Another man spent 10 hours in custody and a third eight hours, Ms Richardson said.

Smith was remanded into custody ahead of sentencing on 22 March.

Judge Moreland told him: "You know that the inevitable sentence is one of immediate custody."