A disturbed teenager's bogus rape claim led to a 35-year-old Iranian man being locked up and other ethnic minority families having to be rehoused for fear of reprisals, a court heard yesterday.

The Iranian asylum-seeker spent four days on remand in Durham Prison after 19-year-old Rebecca McGee gave police a graphic account of how she had been possibly drugged and then raped after sharing a meal with him.

Yesterday, McGee narrowly avoided being put locked up, after a judge read reports about her troubled upbringing.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how the alleged rapist was arrested following McGee's claim to police that, after having a meal at his home in the Percy Main area of Tyneside, her mouth started to feel strange and she felt uneasy.

She said she remembered hearing the voices of two men before losing consciousness and waking the next morning in discomfort.

The court heard that McGee only revealed the truth after police called at her home to take a witness statement. The man was then freed from jail.

McGee, of Wallington Avenue, Brunswick Village, Newcastle, admitted perverting the course of justice in February last year.

Caroline Goodwin, defending, said: ''She is not a scheming harridan, she is a very, very misunderstood and vulnerable person and someone who desperately needs help.

''She comes from a very, very troubled and complicated background.''

McGee was sentenced to a two-year rehabilitation order with a condition that she should be assessed by the Learning Disability Psychiatric Services.