A WOMAN who said she was raped has been jailed after a judge said a secret video recording “saved her ex-partner’s bacon”.

Sarah Boyland, of Lanchester Drive, Banbury, lied to police between April 10 and April 20 last year, resulting in her former boyfriend being arrested and held in police custody for 11 hours.

The 33-year-old mother-of-two has now admitted one count of perverting the course of justice and was jailed at Oxford Crown Court on Friday for eight months. Judge Ian Pringle said Boyland invited her ex over to her house and offered to have sex with him, but he was suspicious and secretly filmed the encounter.

The judge said it was only because of this recording that her former partner, who was not named during the hearing, was able to prove beyond doubt that he was innocent.

He said: “That recording saved him from serving a very substantial prison sentence. Although it is not exactly the type of thing you would expect from a current or even ex partner, it certainly saved his bacon.”

Terence Woods, defending, said that his client was in a “fragile state” and under the influence of alcohol when she made the complaint.

But Judge Pringle told Boyland it was false allegations such as hers which made it so difficult for genuine rape victims to come forward.

She was sentenced to eight months in prison. Boyland smiled to her friend in the public gallery as she was taken down to the cells.