A Ludlow woman has been jailed for four months after making a false allegation of sexual assault against her boss after she was sacked from a restaurant.

Waitress Emma Meredith rang the police and claimed that Martyn Emsen, of the Jolly Frog in Leintwardine, had sexually assaulted her by pinching her on the bottom, Worcester Crown Court heard.

The court heard that the allegation was completely untrue but Mr Emsen was arrested and quizzed for 24 minutes before being given bail.

It was a fortnight later that he was told he was cleared, the court was told.

Meredith, 28, of Clee View, was yesterday jailed for four months after admitting perverting the course of justice.

Mr Charles Hardy, prosecuting, told Worcester Crown Court that Meredith had got the waitress job last December but was sacked after a week.

She returned to the restaurant, asking for her wages, and hung around in the car park for some time, the court heard.

After her call to the police, Mr Emsen spent an hour and a half at Leominster police station with his solicitor and police had spent 29 hours investigating the case, the court was told.

Meredith said she was frightened to tell her husband that she had been sacked.

Mr Bruce Gray, for Meredith, said she had lost nine jobs in the previous year and as she was the family’s breadwinner, it became more and more difficult to tell her husband as he was out of work.

At one stage, she carried out the pretence that she was still in work and got him to take her to the restaurant and collect her later, the court heard.

Restaurant staff challenged her about hanging around in the car park and so she went to a friend’s house to make the call to police on December 26 and Meredith, who has a 10-year-old son, eventually admitted her lie, the court was told.

Judge Alistair McCreath said an allegation of sexual misconduct had been made against an innocent man, who had been badly affected by it.

This had cast an unjustified slur on his reputation, he said.