A WOMAN who accused her defence lawyer of rape after she was convicted of falsely accusing a female solicitor of sexual misconduct was jailed for nine months yesterday.
Jacqueline Barkley, from Edinburgh, was described as behaving with cruel and malicious intent in making false allegations against her lawyer and a police officer who interviewed her after her arrest.
Barkley, 38, was found guilty of the offences at trial in June, where she was also convicted of breaching bail by sending her lawyer and his legal partner text messages.
Sheriff Douglas Allan, sitting at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, said that her actions had had a devastating effect on the lawyer and police officer, who had both been subjected to vigorous investigation. “It appears nobody is safe when they are dealing with you,” he said, adding that the victims of her allegations had been trying to help her.
Barkley was fined £250 last June after being convicted of breaching the peace. She had told the Law Society of Scotland that a 32-year-old female solicitor who was acting for her in a civil matter had sexually molested her. She also bombarded the lawyer with threatening letters and phone calls and loitered outside her office.
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A month later Barkley went to the police and claimed that the lawyer defending her at the trial had raped her on the floor of his office.
Police investigations revealed that the solicitor, Steven Anderson, 45, had not been in work on the day of the alleged rape.
At her most recent trial, Mr Anderson told the jury that after receiving a series of intimate phone calls from Barkley, he advised her that he should not be her lawyer. The calls continued, when she would often cry hysterically and threaten to kill herself if he did not represent her.
Police also had to carry out an investigation into the claim by Barkley that Detective Sergeant Alan Goar had exposed himself to her while interviewing her.
Jacqueline Farquharson, Barkley’s defence advocate, told Sheriff Allan that her client’s actions were “a cry for help from a very lonely woman, condemned to spend her life on her own”.