A WOMAN charged with lying about being raped and blaming her ex-boyfriend for the attack gave evidence yesterday and denied making up the incident.

Mother-of-one Lisa Yapp, aged 24, told Worcester Crown Court that she was attacked in an alleyway as she made her way home to Liverpool Road, Worcester, on July 31, 2011, and said she thought the man responsible was her exboyfriend, Gavin Hockey.

Describing the attack, she said she could only remember parts of it.

“I felt someone punch the back of my head and my eyesight went all blurry, and I was feeling dizzy anyway,” she said.

“The next thing I knew someone’s grabbed my hair and pushed me forward, and I just blanked completely.

“My eyesight started to come back while I was down on the floor, with my trousers round my ankles, while some bloke was running off and said, ‘I told you I’d get you for it’.

“I was in shock and the first thought I had was, ‘Gav’ – because of the accent, and because of an e-mail I’d had a few months back.”

However, the court also heard how Yapp had previously made complaints against Mr Hockey, a month after they broke up in 2010, claiming he had forced himself on her dozens of times in their short relationship.

The investigation was dropped by police just weeks before she made the second allegation.

In reality, Worcester Crown Court was told she had taken part in a drunken threesome with two older men – Matthew Stevens and Terry Lippett – which ended with her having sex with Mr Stevens.

But yesterday, Yapp denied any sexual activity with either man, or even being at Mr Stevens’ house, saying she had “no explanation” for how his DNA was found inside her.

The court heard that Yapp – described as a user of cocaine, cannabis, ketamine and amphetamine – had also previously made an allegation of sex abuse against her step-father when she was just 13 – later admitting she had lied in a bid to get more affection from her family.

When she was arrested, the court heard, she changed her original story and revealed in police interview that she suffered from regular “blank-outs”, as well as other medical conditions, including schizophrenia. 

When asked how she had given officers such detailed descriptions of the attack, despite later claiming she couldn’t remember, she told interviewing officers she had “randomly guessed” what had happened.

Mr Hockey was soon cleared of being responsible, as he had been in Hereford with friends on the night of the attack, and had even been seen on CCTV.

On Monday, the court heard evidence from another of Yapp’s ex boyfriends, 26-year-old Darren Edwards.

Mr Edwards, who was at a friend’s wedding in Oregon, USA, at the time of the alleged rape, told the court she would often tell lies ranging from “little fibby ones to major ones”.

After their first relationship broke down “due to her lies”, he said, they got back together when she led him to believe her son was his – a DNA test later proved this was not the case.

“She was pretty adamant that it was Gav who attacked her,” Mr Edwards said.

Yapp denies one charge of perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.


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