Three-year sentence for false rape claim

A judge yesterday imposed a three-year prison term on a woman who sparked a needless six-week long pursuit for a rapist around Shannon.

The investigation, which included gardaí making 30 separate house calls in Shannon, Co Clare, followed Amanda Hayes falsely reporting to gardaí that she was raped by a man wearing a hoodie in the early hours of St Stephen’s Day in December 2014 at Drumgeely in Shannon.

In her complaint to gardaí, Ms Hayes, aged 26, of Inis Eagla, Shannon, gave a graphic account of the supposed rape.