Police domestic abuse mentor made false claims against partner

A FEMALE police officer and domestic violence mentor is facing a prison sentence after falsely claiming her partner was abusing her.

Amanda Aston, a constable at Guildford police station in Surrey, “embellished and exaggerated” difficulties in her relationship with Matthew Taylor, a sergeant in the same force.

The 43-year-old was found guilty by a jury at Maidstone Crown Court in Kent of two offences of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud.

After her claims, Mr Taylor was arrested in 2017 and charged with con- trolling coercive behaviour. He was remanded in jail for two months and lost his job with Surrey Police.

He was freed from Winchester Prison, where he had spent 23 hours a day in a cell, and the case was dropped after his mother trawled his social media accounts and phone messages and found evidence of their almost constant contact. During Aston’s trial, the jury heard she made false allegations of his “control, abuse, harassment, stalking, intimidation and gaslighting” in a witness statement which ran to 57 pages.

Her claims included that the sergeant, also based at the time in Guildford, would grab her around the throat during sex, and had left her “tortured and traumatised” with his remarks about what another officer would do to her sexually.

Giving evidence, Aston denied a suggestion she was “a conniving puppetmaster who liked being the centre of attention”. Mr Taylor, 35, told the court that although he could be “obnoxious and patronising” and after his arrest had breached his bail conditions by continuing to see Aston, he had been “the victim of a monumental miscarriage of justice”.

Aston, said to still be a serving officer with Surrey Police, was also accused of defrauding the Surrey Police Welfare Fund of £5,000 in June 2018 by claiming she suffered financial hardship as a result of having to move home because of Mr Taylor’s alleged behaviour.

Adjourning sentencing until May 22, Mr Justice Cavanagh warned Aston, who was released on bail, that she faces a jail term.

Eloise Marshall KC, prosecuting, said that although Aston and Mr Taylor’s relationship was “undoubtedly unhealthy”, her claims against him consisted of “demonstrable untruths and distortions of the truth”, adding: “She knew, as a domestic abuse mentor, what those lies would lead to and what it would mean for Mr Taylor.”