Milroy-Sloan jailed for three years

The woman at the centre of rape allegations against a former Tory MP and his wife has been given a custodial sentence of three years.

Trainee lecturer and mother-of-four Nadine Milroy-Sloan, aged 29, from Grimsby, was found guilty on two charges of perverting the course of justice at the Old Bailey last month, and sentencing following the jury trial was deferred until today.

Following the rape allegations both former Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine were arrested for questioning by police but later cleared of the accusations levelled by Milroy-Sloan. A third man, 62-year-old Barry Lehaney, was also cleared of any involvement in the allegation made by Milroy Sloan.

Sentencing Milroy-Sloan, Judge Simon Smith said that it was becoming “far too easy to fake allegations about well-known people” and said that the courts would deal with such cases “firmly”. He handed down concurrent sentences of three years each for the two charges.

Milroy-Sloan made no response other than to bow her head slightly when the sentence was passed.

Mr Hamilton, who was not in court, said that he thought that the sentence was sufficient to discourage people from attempting to make money by selling invented allegations to the tabloid press.

However, he called for the Press Complaints Commission to look into the issue of people being paid for sensational allegations that were unproven.

Mr Hamilton, said that Milroy-Sloan who had waived her right to anonymity, had sought to profit from this as a “commodity”.

He repeated calls for the anonymity extended to alleged rape victims to be extended to include defendants.

(SP)