9 June 2005

JAILED..BUT IS HE CRY RAPE WIFE'S 3RD VICTIM
DOUBTS OVER HER CLAIMS

By Stephen Moyes

A MAN was jailed for two years after being accused of raping Merete Underwood, the woman sentenced for lying about another sex attack.

She received a 12-month prison term this week after lying to police over a sex session with an interior designer she met in a bar in London.

She had invented the rape story to cover-up a one-night stand to fool her husband Toby.

Now doubt has been raised over the conviction of a man who Merete, 32, claimed raped her in Norway in 1992. On that occasion the Norwegian, then 18, said she was grabbed off a pavement in Fauske and bundled into a car and attacked.

After her claims a 24-year-old man came forward to tell police he had met her after getting out of his car to relieve himself. He said they chatted and she willingly had sex with him, although they were strangers. But he was not believed and jailed for two years. His appeal was rejected and was ordered to pay £7,000 compensation.

It has also emerged in 1997, Kai-Magne Hansen, a 39-year-old foreman, was accused of raping Merete in the street after a disco in Fauske.

He recalled: "She was very drunk and came over and tried to sit on my lap. I asked her to get off. That was the only time I spoke to her."

But after she picked him out at an identity parade he was charged with rape and held in a cell for two weeks before being released without charge.

She later tried and failed to claim £20,000 in compensation from him.

Last night it was reported she plans to appeal against her jail term for perverting the course of justice.