Former Metropolitan Police officer Lauren Evans, 34, from Maidstone, Kent, has had her sentence increased from 12 months to two years after the Court of Appeal found her original sentence unduly lenient. She had been convicted of perverting the course of justice for inventing a sexual assault to cover up being late for work.
False Allegation to Cover Lateness
In March 2023, Evans falsely claimed that a plain-clothes police officer stopped her on her way to work in south London and conducted an intimate search. She fabricated the officer's identity, stating his name was Watson. By coincidence, a police officer named Alex Watson was driving an unmarked car in the same area that day. He had never met Evans.
PC Alex Watson was subsequently arrested and spent 23 hours in police custody. It took 30 detectives some 1,500 hours to conclude that Evans was lying. At Southwark Crown Court in December, she was found guilty and later dismissed without notice after a misconduct hearing.
Impact on Innocent Officer
In his victim impact statement, PC Watson said his wife had to leave her role in the police force because it reminded her of his arrest. He had been arrested in front of his wife and children at their family home after Evans lodged the claims.
At her sentencing, Judge Martin Griffith told Evans: “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.”
Court of Appeal Increases Sentence
Evans' original 12-month sentence was referred to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme and doubled to two years. As she had already been released from prison, she was ordered to surrender to Guildford Police station to be returned to custody.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cutler, from the Met's Anti-Abuse and Corruption Command, said at the time of Evans’ dismissal: "Officers should act with integrity at all times and lying about such a serious allegation is completely unacceptable. It undermines the work that takes place across the Met every day to support victims of sexual offences and it will not be tolerated. This has been a complex investigation which started following an allegation against another officer. This allegation was investigated thoroughly and we found no evidence that the incident had taken place."
