Policewoman jailed after falsely claiming officer sexually assaulted her because she was late for work

A police constable who was late for duty claimed it was because she had been sexually assaulted by an officer, whom she had never met.

Lauren Evans, 34, said a plain-clothes cop in an unmarked car stopped her while she was driving in March 2023 and falsely claimed he was named ‘Watson.’

The next day, PC Alex Watson – whom Evans had never met – was arrested in front of his wife and children as they arrived home from a wedding.

By coincidence, Mr Watson was driving an unmarked car in the area where Evans, from Kent, alleged the attack had occurred.

He was arrested and spent 23 hours in custody before detectives established that Evans had made up the allegation.

Judge Martin Griffith told the shamed officer she probably made up the allegation as an excuse for being late.

He said: ‘It’s a great shame, you have lost your job, his wife has given up her job, all through a simple lie told in circumstances which must have had something to do with being late.

‘You tried to fool a jury by telling them you were innocent. For all of your good qualities, you’ve shot yourself in both feet, and I still can’t quite work out why,’ the judge added.

He said her actions had a ‘catastrophic effect’ on the officer and his family and had wasted 1,500 hours of police time shared by 30 police officers.

In his victim impact statement, PC Alex Watson said his wife of 18 years has had to leave her role as police staff as it reminded her of his arrest.

The house was also searched, leading to his children now feeling unsafe in the home, PC Watson said.

‘The effect of the arrest was catastrophic. I’m a proud serving police officer, and my wife and I have combined police service of 30 years,’ he said in a statement.

‘We felt betrayed and let down by the organisation we had worked so much for,’ he added.

‘I was treated like a criminal and handcuffed like a violent criminal.’

Evans, of Maidstone, Kent, denied but was convicted by a jury of perverting the course of justice and jailed for a year.

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