AN innocent man hit out last night after a lying neighbour who made up a race-hate crime against him escaped scot-free.
John Davis was arrested and charged with racially abusing his neighbour Sharon Brooke – who claimed he had called her a rude term relating to her English upbringing.
But when John’s case went to trial, Brooke freely admitted in the witness box she made it all up to get him in trouble.
“It’s all lies – I made it all up. I hate him,” she blurted to an astonished Greenock Sheriff Court.
She was immediately arrested and taken to the cells to be questioned over wasting police time and perverting the course of justice.
John, 40, expected her to be prosecuted and punished for putting him through an eight-month legal ordeal in which he was worried sick that he’d lose his job and good name.
But the Crown Office has announced no action will be taken against the 45-year-old.
John said: “It’s disgusting. How can she be allowed to make all this stuff up and just get away with it?
“At the very least I thought she’d get a fine or some sort of punishment.
“What kind of message is this to send? It’s like saying it’s fine to make up lies about someone and put them though hell as there won’t be any comeback.
“I could have lost my job over this.
“If the court had found me guilty it would have been almost certain dismissal. I had this hanging over me for months.”
John was arrested on May 31 last year – but the case didn’t go to court until January.
He’s spent the last six months waiting to hear what action would be taken against Brooke.
John added: “I’m the last person in the world to abuse someone for being English – or any other race.
“I’ve got English family and friends – the words she said I used would just never have even entered my mind.
“All I did was politely ask her and her partner to try and keep their dog from barking so loudly during the day so I could get a sleep.
“I was just being a polite neighbour – but she tried to ruin my name. It’s appalling.
“Every time I went in and out of the house I had to video myself coming and going in case she tried to make something else up about me.”
At Greenock Sheriff Court, Brooke’s lies unravelled as she repeatedly said she “couldn’t remember” what she’d alleged had happened.
Then she admitted she had made it all up.
Prosecutor Lindy Scaife asked Brooke: “Do you have any idea what you have put this man through?”
A spokesman for the Crown Office confirmed no action was being taken against her.
He said: “Following full and careful consideration of the facts, the procurator fiscal instructed that there be no proceedings.”
The Sunday Post attempted to contact Brooke at her new Glasgow home, but she was unavailable.
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