A CHARD woman tried to set up her ex-partner by hacking into his Facebook account and pretending he had sent her a threatening message, Taunton Crown Court heard.

Zoe Jane Williams, 23, of Henson Park, previously accused him of raping her several times and thought the bogus message would help police take her complaint more seriously.

Williams was jailed for four months after admitting attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Caroline Bolt, prosecuting, said the couple had a bitter custody dispute after their five-year relationship ended in April, 2007.

Williams then alleged last June that he raped her on a number of occasions after they split.

Miss Bolt told the court her ex was arrested last summer after Williams reported the threatening message to police, but she was caught out after police seized her computer and proved she wrote it herself.

Ed Boyce, defending, said: “She felt the police weren’t taking seriously the complaints of rape she’d made to them, so she decided to invent this message and sent it to herself in the hope that it would strengthen her complaint.

“In fact, it has done completely the opposite.”

He said police have dropped the rape case.

He said: “She regretted what she did. She was embarrassed and felt unable to put it right.”

Jailing Williams, who has since married and has a baby, Judge Graham Hume Jones said: “What you did was particularly wicked.

“People have to realise that however strong their feelings and emotions may be they mustn’t interfere with the course of justice and particularly mustn’t make false allegations.”