An innocent letting agent was held in a police cell for five hours.
Susan Mogridge was falsely accused of theft after being caught up in a family row.
A High Court judge has criticised police over the affair.
Mrs Mogridge, business partner of Caroline Baines, had at one time worked at the letting agency, Halcyon House Lettings, run by the latter’s mother, Nicola Low, in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
However, mother and daughter fell out when the younger woman complained about her maternity pay.
Caroline Baines and Susan Mogridge subsequently left to start their own agency, Mint Lettings.
A stream of angry letters culminated in Mrs Low making an “extremely nasty” complaint to police, alleging theft by Mrs Mogridge, leading to her arrest.
Judge Richard Seymour QC described the statement made to police as “outrageous”, saying it contained “a number of barefaced lies”.
He added: “The decision of Hertfordshire Police even to investigate the complaints of Mrs Low, still less to arrest Mrs Mogridge, was not a tribute to the intelligence of the officers concerned.”
He said there was no reason for the mother to have made the complaint to the police other than spite.
In the civil case Mrs Low sued her daughter for £100,000, accusing her of stealing clients.
Caroline Baines and Susan Mogridge counter-sued on the grounds of harassment and asked the court to award them £50,000 damages.
The judge, at London’s High Court, dismissed both sets of claims, describing the case as unhappy family discord.
"The judge, at London’s High Court, dismissed both sets of claims, describing the case as unhappy family discord."
How much, I wonder, were the Court costs – and who is paying them?
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