Woman jailed for six years after trying to trick men into raping former colleague

Joanne Berry had given the address of her former co-worker out and asked men to act out violent rape fantasies

Joanne Berry has been sentenced to six years in prison (PA)

A woman who posed as a former co-worker online to try and trick men into raping the unwitting colleague has been jailed for six years.

Joanne Berry, 30, went onto sex chatrooms and assumed the identity of the victim, giving out her address online and asking men to act out violent rape fantasies with her.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how Berry had developed an “irrational vendetta” against the victim, Judge David Grifith-Jones QC said, and may have held her responsible for losing her temporary job.

Berry had displayed “increasingly erratic behaviour at work,” he added and later was said to have embarked on a “wicked and calculated” crusade against the victim.

She spoke to men on websites such as Cougar Shag, asking them to act out “some sort of rape scenario,” Kent Online reports, before handing over the colleague’s address in Medway.

Her twisted plan eventually led to one man trying to force his way into the unsuspecting woman’s home to perform the ‘role play’, which he stopped when he realised he had been set up.

After the incident he wrote a letter of apology to the woman and said that he had been duped by a “very deranged person.”

The attempts by south Londoner Berry had been made between April and June 2012, but she was convicted in May of putting a person in fear of violence and was ordered to undergo psychiatric tests.

A search of her computers led officers to uncover conversations in which she’d ask to be “frightened”.

The court heard one: “Grab me by the neck and really scare and intimidate me. Interested? Then you basically have free rein.”

The mother-of-one was also convicted of committing an assault with the intention of committing a sexual offence, common assault and attempting to cause a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.