A boozy night in with mates turned into a horror story for a teenager after he was accused of brutally raping a 16-year-old girl.

Glen Beaton, 19, was woken by around 20 officers who had stormed into his home in Shepway, Maidstone, to arrest him after the girl reported the attack.

Unable to believe what was happening, Mr Beaton ran to the bathroom and was immediately sick.

This week his accuser, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to a 12-month referral order after she admitted making the whole thing up.

But he says the punishment is not enough for someone who tried to ruin his life.

The Kent Messenger asked Maidstone magistrates to lift a ban identifying the girl but they refused.

She told police that Mr Beaton, who now lives in Mangravet, had grabbed her on April 12, and dragged her at knifepoint into his home where he raped her.

The truth, which both Mr Beaton and his accuser knew, was a very different story.

The nightmare events started with a run of the mill evening in.

Mr Beaton and a couple of friends were stocked up with booze and planning a low key night at his home.

They were eventually joined by the teenage fantasist who immediately started making advances towards Mr Beaton.

Mr Beaton said: “I had seen her around before but I did not really know her. She was a friend of one of my mates and just phoned him and asked if she could come round.

“She wasn’t really my type but she kept saying things to me, and the more drunk I got I thought why not?”

The drinking continued and Mr Beaton and the girl both became quite inebriated.

At one point they went upstairs and started kissing.

They then returned to the party and, according to Mr Beaton, the girl performed a sex act on him in front of his friends.

Mr Beaton said: “She told me she wanted to have sex with me, so we went upstairs and did it.

“We were both drunk, but I think I was the more drunk of the two. She had to take my trousers off for me.

“She was the one who was coming on to me, but we were both responsible. I did not say no, after all.”

The couple had sex a second time but at around 2am he asked the girl to leave because his mother did not like girls staying over.

Interrogation

Less than four hours later, Mr Beaton was at the police station facing an interrogation and his home was being searched by forensic investigators.

When he was finally released, he headed home, dreading the prospect of seeing anyone in case they believed he was a rapist.

“I was scared about what people would think of me,” he said. “I was scared they would think it was true.

“I tried to avoid people but my friends kept coming round. They asked me what had happened and I told them the truth.

“I thought about not saying I’d been arrested for rape but knew it would get out and that would make me look guilty.”

For two days Mr Beaton lived in fear of being prosecuted, then he received the amazing news that the police were not going to charge him.

Apparently the statements of his two friends, plus evidence from an electronic tag he was wearing at the time, proved he was innocent.

Feelings of utter relief swept through him but months later the scars of the ordeal are still affecting him.

Five months on he feels unable to have his picture in the paper in case people see him in the street and think he is a rapist.

He said: “For ages I couldn’t be in the places in the house where we had been together. It kept coming back to me.

“I won’t let this ruin my life, but it has certainly ruined my sex life.

“I can’t be with girls in the same way. I’ve had a girlfriend since this happened but it took me ages to sleep with her.

“I just kept thinking what if we do and she turns round and says I forced her.

“I just don’t understand why someone would make something like this up.”