A SOLDIER’S wife has been jailed after claiming she had been raped, to cover up becoming pregnant while her husband was fighting in Afghanistan.

Two innocent men were arrested after Samantha Morley, of Willow Road, Ambrosden, near Bicester, told police she had been raped.

The 24-year-old later admitted the claim was a ruse to pacify her soldier husband who realised her unborn child was not his. Thomas Morley became suspicious because the child’s date of birth meant she was likely to have been conceived while he was serving in Helmand. His wife told him she was raped during a drunken night out.

Rachel Drake, prosecuting, said: “She said she had been out with her sister and they had been drinking. She said she had been assaulted by a stranger in an alleyway.”

Police estimated more than 54 hours were wasted on the rape claims.

The mother of three, who admitted perverting the course of justice, was yesterday jailed for 12 months at Oxford Crown Court.

The court heard Mr Morley was standing by his wife, who is pregnant again, and had given up his job in the Army to care for their three children while she is in prison.