Manchester United 'rape' suspect 'could be victim of mistaken identity'

Detectives believe the model who claimed she was raped at Manchester United's Christmas party may have wrongly named the 19-year-old defender as her attacker.

They say "serious inconsistencies" have arisen in her account of the incident.

A police source said: "No one is saying she has done anything deliberately underhand. The problem is that free drink had been flowing all evening and there were a lot of people moving about the hotel. Doubts started to creep in.

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"You have to remember when dealing with allegations of rape that we have to treat the complaint with great delicacy. It is a very difficult area and the Crown Prosecutin Service looks at the evidence very carefully.

Another police source said that if officers concluded the model had been wasting police time, she could be charged.

Sources say there are glaring inconsistencies between the written, audio and video statements by the 26-year-old woman.

Last week, the club's 19-year-old Northern Irish defender Jonny Evans was interviewed then bailed.

He is understood to have told friends he did not lay a finger on the woman and was targeted by her.

The alleged victim is understood to have given differing accounts of how she she came to be alone with the footballer, despite arriving at the party in Manchester with her boyfriend.

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The source added: "She did not stand up well to questioning and seemed very muddled about events leading up to the alleged incident and what happened afterwards.

"Towards the end, she was even starting to express doubts about whether it was the footballer we had taken in for questioning or another of his team-mates.

"The commonly-held view here is that it would not only be a nightmare to prosecute but that this young lady could be wasting our time.

"It may well be that we take action against her rather than the player."

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Meanwhile on Saturday Jonny Evans' girlfriend announced she was standing by him.

Student Kate Wathall, 20, said she did not believe that Jonny Evans attacked a woman at the club's sleazy Christmas party.

The 26-year-old was one of around 100 young women at the all-night event at a Manchester hotel, but the players' wives and girlfriends were not invited.

Miss Wathall, a student at Newcastle University, met the 19-year-old Northern Ireland international around a year ago while he was on loan at nearby Sunderland.

A friend said: "Jonny was smitten by her from the start.

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"She is a great looking girl, blonde, bubbly and bright, and she is a sort of party-going girl and knows how to enjoy herself."

At her parents' £650,000 detached house in Sheffield, Miss Wathall said she had spent "hours" talking to the teenager - regarded as a possible star of the future - since he was arrested earlier this week.

"I am still Jonny's girlfriend and, yes, I am standing by him," she said.

"I'm not prepared to talk about Jonny or myself but we are still together and that's what matters to me and him."

Although Evans moved back to Manchester at the start of this season to attempt to break into the first team, the pair have continued to see one another regularly.