Trans liar sentenced

A trans-identifying man has been jailed for seven and a half years after falsely accusing six innocent men of rape.

Khloe Simmonds, 26, is being held in HMP Wormwood Scrubs, a male prison. Yet the court referred to him using female pronouns throughout the hearing, and even prosecutor Ben Temple adopted them while describing the offender’s lies.

Simmonds pleaded guilty to eight counts of tending and intending to pervert the course of public justice after a string of false claims made between July 2018 and January 2026.

Harrow Crown Court heard that his 12 bogus allegations accounted for 2.5 per cent of all rape and serious sexual assault reports in Harrow at one point. Several innocent men were arrested and detained before being cleared.

One was accused of holding Simmonds at knifepoint and forcing oral sex. He was arrested and spent 88 days under police investigation. The court heard that he had in fact rejected Simmonds’ advances.

In a victim impact statement, the man said the allegation ended his relationship, led his brothers to stop speaking to him and left him attempting to take his own life multiple times.

Another victim, a chef Simmonds met through Grindr, was arrested after Simmonds claimed he had drugged and raped him. He spent 20 hours at a police station. The court heard that the chef had left Simmonds’ flat after becoming uncomfortable.

Simmonds also accused a taxi driver of rape after a date. But vehicle data showed that the cab had not stopped and had travelled at no less than 25mph throughout the journey.

The false claims continued even after Simmonds had been arrested and released under investigation for a second time, on 4 August 2022, over more than 20 alleged attempts to pervert the course of justice. At that point, he was making a large volume of calls to police, including 27 in one night, one lasting 23 minutes.

The final allegation came in January this year, when Simmonds accused another man of rape. Footage quickly showed that no assault had taken place.

Simmonds watched the start of his sentencing hearing by video link from Wormwood Scrubs, but returned to his cell before it ended.

Prosecutor Ben Temple said the defendant had told police that he had mental-health problems, difficulty with alcohol and difficulty with his “gender transition”.

“She (sic) said she had mental health issues. She had difficulty abusing alcohol and difficulty with her gender transition. In her words ‘That was no excuse’,” Temple said.

Sentencing Simmonds, Judge John Lodge said the offences were “a sustained pattern of conduct”, rather than isolated incidents.

He said the lies had diverted resources from genuine victims of serious crime and risked undermining public confidence in the justice system.

In mitigation, defence counsel cited autism, ADHD, alcoholism and mental-health difficulties.