ridiculous if true

[stu450]

hi all, if this has already been discussed then i apologise...however i was told recently by a friend that a friend of his was recently arrest and of course no details will be given of his ID or whereabouts, anyway this guy was arrested on 2 historic sexual allegations, if true it is actually pretty nasty, 1 allegation was she says she was molested at age 6 by him and was raped at age 13, that said there is no evidence of any kind against this guy, no witnesses, ONLY the word of the 'victim', he says he went to a solicitor recently and he says he was told that if the girl tells friends/relatives about what happened to her then the testimony of those people can and will be used in court as evidence against the defendant, to me it sounds stupid because they were not there, it is only the victims word, but this is what the guy apparently was told by his solicitor, is this true?
would appreciate your thoughts, as yet he has not been charged,
thanks

[Casehardened]

he says he was told that if the girl tells friends/relatives about what happened to her then the testimony of those people can and will be used in court as evidence against the defendant, to me it sounds stupid because they were not there, it is only the victims word, but this is what the guy apparently was told by his solicitor, is this true?
would appreciate your thoughts, as yet he has not been charged,
thanks

My understanding is that this can be the case if the girl told others before it was reported and preferably just after the alleged offences occurred i.e. she can't go around now recruiting potential witnesses.

PS moved thread to a more appropriate section

[stu450]

hi Casehardened, many thanks for the reply, not much of a forum poster so my apologies if posted in wrong section,
the very concept of someone with no connection at all to a rape case being able to give evidence in court is bizarre to me, what the guy is accused of if true is a very serious matter but thats not the issue, my friend told me that this guy was considering taking his own life because he felt he had little option, ok if he actually did it then i have little sympathy, but if he is innocent then that would be a tragedy, this website has been a real education to me and i thank those that run it, i never realised that false allegations were so common, i don't know if the guy here did it or not and i thank god i am not him, my point to the original post was it was my belief that a conviction must be based on proof and evidence, not just the word of the victim and/or her friends/relatives that she told,
thanks again, great website by the way.

[Casehardened]

Sexual offences, for better or worse, are in a category of their own as regards evidence and witnesses (probably on the basis that there are usually no independent witnesses!)

I often quote the comparison of going into a police station and attempting to report a burglary that happened a few years ago: didn't report it at the time so any evidence now long gone, but so-and-so did it.

How far would such an investigation go, probably not past the front desk