Please Advise

[ConfusedOne]

Hi

I am very thankful for having come across this site and pray that whatever help anyone here can give me is not too late!

As a bit of background I am a middle aged man who has been married for many years with an adult family. I work full time in a recognised professional field and have worked with many thousands of people, without never incurring a single complaint to my governing professional body. I have never been involved with the police as have none of my family.

Briefly I have been accused of rape by a friend of the family who was invited to a family party by my daughter. At this point I raise my hands and admit to adultery, but not rape. We we were both extremely drunk and after others had left (although there were 5 sleeping in the house) we had sex.

It was a massive mistake full-stop as I love my wife and family so much, but to have her off load her share of the responsibility for what happened fully on me is frankly devastating. What really adds salt to the wounds is that she Immediately went off on a month+ long holiday on her own, to Thailand and raved it up without any concerns! Others that know her have shown me the Facebook pictures of her still getting consistently drunk and acting in a party manner. So much for the CPS guidelines on rape saying that every rape is a traumatic experience for "the victim". Frankly I have felt the victim and like so many others here who view themselves as men of integretiy have suffered severe anxiety (agrophobia), depression and thoughts of suicide.

My wife and family know me for who I really am. Indeed my wife really knows about rape having been consistently raped by her father all of the way through he childhood by her father! We have had to live and work with that in our marriage and it has been challenging, we have however found healing through our children. I am a blessed man in so many ways.

My accuser has already told lies and elaborated her case, however the police seem determined to destroy me...Having read some of the posts here my perception of the police; being here to ensure that justice is done, has been destroyed and I am even more concerned than ever.

I have never held back telling the complete truth to the police as I can recall it, but comments about juries not having any compassion or logic and just wanting to get home freaks me out.

The alledged incident took place the 3rd week of June 2010 and I have been bailed twice. My next bail ends on 4th Nov and I have been told that it will not now be extended. The police officer focused on me needing a solicitor present at that point, but then did say if it got NFA'd that he would contact me directly before hand. I guess that even if that was to happen they would make that a last minute thing to do...am I correct from other's experience?

I need a GOOD solicitor now. The duty soicitor although "pleasant enough" is an older guy who is rather absent minded and does not inspire confidence: It all seemed far too matter of fact for him and he seemed rather removed.

I noted that the likes of "Rights Fighter" is able to advise good solicitor's in such a situation. I live in Noth Wiltshire.

Any help/support would be very much apprecaited. Thank God for you and your calling to put this forum together.

[eastwood]

hiya

hi confused one sorry i cant advise but you have my support, i think you'll find there are many people on here that can help you get through this but my belief is the police do try to supress anything that would help you as they see it is they spent man hours on this so they want a conviction and the easiest way would be you and i rather than spend more man hours tryin to get to the truth with little or no result let me know how you get on on the 4th of nov, you take care.

[worriedfather]

Hi Confused Welcome to the site although under bad circumstances. I am sure that RF or RFLH will be along to advise on a solicitor soon, There are many people on here who have been through or are going through what you are going through.
Please do not trust the police, they are not there to decide who is telling the truth but rather gather evidence that supports a conviction.
Gather any evidence that you can and give it to your solicitor, also load any emails etc onto a stick and store it away from your house.
I wish you luck.

[Casehardened]

Dear ConfusedOne,

Sorry that you had to find your way here, but hopefully it will help knowing you aren’t the only one to go through this experience.

I’m assuming you have told the police that you had consensual sex; in this case any medical evidence is irrelevant, this issue is consent: you say she consented, she says she didn’t, the familiar word-against-word scenario.

What you have in your favour is that you are a professional with obvious communication skills; taking the worst case, you should be able to be a very credible believable witness and be able to hold the attention of the jury so they don’t drift off to sleep.

As you rightly say you need to get a specialist solicitor on board, and Rights Fighter is the key to this, but you need to collate the ammunition for him to assist you.

Consider what motives she might have to lie: jealous boyfriend; worry about what your wife would say to her, next morning shame of her drunken actions, etc

You mentioned there were other people in the house: why didn’t she cry out to get their attention?

Does she have money problems which may be solved by the compo gravy train?

At the very least doing this will help you cope with the waiting game.

Don’t put too much store in the ‘holiday defence’, more than likely her barrister will then simply explain this away to the jury as a natural reaction to the ‘trauma’ of being raped, far better to look for evidence to show that it was consensual: would anyone at the party testify that you and her were flirting, etc together during the evening.

Hope all goes well for you on Nov 4th.

[Saffron]

As a rape survivor, your wife would be a very powerful witness if this case ever gets to court. When you have a sol in place, make sure s/he takes a statement from your wife. The fact that she is supporting you despite your dalliance with this girl would also speak volumes.

Casehardened is right about her partying antics after the "rape" - in the eyes of the law it could well mean that she was so traumatised that she tried to "blot out the horror" by getting drunk and partying.

Did she go to the police immediately, or wait until she was back from her long holiday? Quite often in false rape allegations the "victims" lie so often and with such self-belief that they eventually manage to convince themselves that something really did happen.

Don't post up anything identifiable - I am going to edit your post to remove certain aspects that might identify you.

[ConfusedOne]

Thanks for the quick responses!

Thanks for editing my post, I did think about making it unidentifiable but in my haste to post obviously didn't do so...so thanks.

I started a file the moment that I was arrested and released, but ideas on what evidence I need to collect and from whom would be very much appreciated.

She reported the allegation the next day, but ironically not before texting my daughter to say what a good time she had at the party and that she looked forward to catching up with her soon. We have the text messages.

I have thought about the motives. Previous evidence suggests that she has had realationship issues with her parents (she had talked to my daughter a lot in the past), which I suspect her mum feels bad about. My guess was the next day she could not deal with the fear of my daughter and wife's rejection and could not keep her feelings under wraps. Consequently her mother noticed and in an act of trying to mend bridges/over come her own mothering guilt declared it as "rape". I defo want her mum on the witness stand if it comes to that!

Do I just need to prepare a file for my brief to follow up with contact details for whom I belive are witnesses (with my reasoning why)? Our should I be looking to get my own witness statements together?

Thanks

[Casehardened]

Do I just need to prepare a file for my brief to follow up with contact details for whom I belive are witnesses (with my reasoning why)? Our should I be looking to get my own witness statements together?

Thanks

It's probably not a good idea to get written witness statements yourself, if the 'other side' got wind of this they could suggest you had 'coached' your witnesses.

It is certainly a good idea to get their details ready for your solicitor but it may be as well to check with them first that they would be willing to give a statement to support you.

I would be looking for anything or anybody to corroborate that you and the girl were enjoying each other’s company during the party leading up to the time of the allegation, i.e. sitting and chatting together, etc. You must try to show that there was some sort of relationship beforehand to indicate that she was a willing partner at the time.

Hopefully you will get a good solicitor but they will only get paid for attending the police station with you, or if you are charged, so may not start too many investigations unless this actually happens.

[ConfusedOne]

Thanks Casehardened. I will do so. As it is now only 2 weeks before my "final" bail date I am desperate to be able to make contact with a credible local solicitor. Please if anyone can advise on such I would be VERY GRATEFUL. Without the knowledge of an experienced person in support you are left feeling completely exposed and vulnerable.

[Saffron]

Good advice from CaseHardened.

ConfusedOne, have you been able to read the accusers statement? Is she alleging that you forced sex on her, or that she was unconscious and unable to consent?

Although CH is right to say that any medical/DNA evidence will be more or less irrelevant because the issue is one of consent, it could still have a bearing on the case. This depends entirely on what she has alleged. She will certainly have been "intimately" examined as a matter of course.

If she alleges that you used physical force, then the medical officer would have been looking for some manifestation of this - bruising/tearing etc - not just vaginally, but on other areas of her body as well. However if she alleges that she was asleep/unconscious then this would be irrelevant.

If she had any recent marks/scratches/bruises anywhere on her body these should have been photographed and documented. However this is not necessarily indicative of forced sex. (personally I am incredibly clumsy so I usually have a fresh bruise somewhere on my body - bashed my wrist just yesterday; it's a lovely purple now!)

You should also have been subjected to a physical examination. Again, if she alleges that she "fought you off" then any scratches/bruises etc on your body should have been photographed and documented. If there were none visible, ideally Plod should have made a note of this.

I'm afraid I can't help on the solicitor front, except to advise you NOT to use the one we used! (Duty sols in B'ham, dreadful) I will PM Rights Fighter, although I know she is incredibly busy so she may not be able to respond immediately. However, if you are to change sols you MUST do it before you answer bail. Once you are charged it can be difficult to change your legal representative.

It's good that you have the text message she sent to your daughter the day after the party. You must on no account give this to the police. Keep it safe and preferably somewhere away from your home.

I would also suggest that you start compiling a list of "character references". These should ideally be professionally-qualified people (doctors, teachers, solicitors, engineers, architects, etc) although ley people are also taken into account. These will not have a bearing on the case unless it gets to court, but it is best to be prepared.

Finally I would add that elaborating the story of her "assault" and adding more and more detail to it is classic behaviour for a false accuser. Never underestimate the power that "victim status" gives someone who is hungry for attention. The more traumatic and violent the "ordeal" the more they are seen as courageous and righteous. Our accuser did just that, both before and after the trial. Make a note of what has changed since her original complaint. I doubt it would be admissible at trial due to the Hearsay rule, but you never know. If she has told a friend of yours what she claims happened, and later told the same friend a different, more dramatic version of events, it could well be useful.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

[ConfusedOne]

I have not actually seen her statement. Am I allowed to do so? I did not know that…really? I only know what she said from my “interrogation by the police”. They kept me in over night to soften me up…and then played good cop bad cop over a 4 hr period, trying to break me down. I was so cold, so confused so…But I do recall all of the things that they challenged me with that are fabrications or exaggerations on her behalf.

She alleges that she was unconscious and that she woke in the middle of intercourse, to which she was clearly responsive, and was too terrified to do anything. However for one thing when I was arrested I was arrested on suspicion of:

Digital penetration
Rape
Possessing firearms during such an offence (I am a shotgun owner and she has never even seen my shotguns)

Point is if she claims she was unconscious and then awoke during intercourse what does she know of any act of digital penetration. And as was pointed out above why then did she then allow it to continue? Help was a brief shout away to people she knew and would have trusted (she is in her mid twenties by the way). She claimed to awake with a big, sweaty, smelly guy over her. I was arrested in the same clothes that I had been wearing and definitely did not smell…I offered the officers a whiff and they refused. I still have the clothes in a bag in the garage.

She also claimed that she had always hated me and was afraid of me. Everyone saw her arrive and give me a big hug and later several people saw her reaction to my instrument playing and her asking me to show her how too so.I have know her for about 14 years and she has been to our home/social events on numerous ocassions.

She apparently also claimed something about imprisonment. However it transpires that after I tucked her up on the sofa she managed to ring a taxi and exit via the front door, that simply needed a button flicked, a bolt sliding and the chain taken off. The back door was completely unlocked.

Yes I was medically processed, but there was no act of physical force involved.

On the false accuser account I strongly suspect that it is her mum that is behind this. There is evidence that the her relationship with her family has not been as she would have liked it. Our family is on the other hand (from the outside at least!) a model family and my daughter has always detected jealousy.

[Casehardened]

I don’t believe you will be able to see the accuser’s statement unless you are charged, so as you say, the only way of knowing what she has said is by gleaning information during your interview. If you have the tapes, or can get them, it is well worth listening to them again and again. You will pick up on lots of inconsistencies that passed you by at the time due to the stress.

The police do actually question the ‘victim’ quite thoroughly, although in a more friendly fashion than they do the accused person, and some of the inconsistencies and elaborations in the victims account comes from the replies she has to make to the more searching questions that she is asked.

For example, undoubtedly she was asked why she didn’t cry out or scream, and could only come up with the unconscious/terrified explanation.

You have the advantage that you know what actually happened and therefore on what points she has lied about. You can therefore build a defence case around these weak points, remembering that she may not have the time or foresight to construct a ‘watertight’ accusation before being questioned.

[Saffron]

CH is right again; you will not be able to see her statement until/unless you are charged. The reason I asked is that we were given absolutely no information about what was supposed to have happened until R was charged. All we were told was that she claimed he had raped her.

The digital penetration thing is not really an issue for defence....you could have been "at it" and then withdrawn to digitally penetrate her. Sorry if that sounds horrible.

Keep posting - better out than in.

[Rights Fighter]

http://www.richardgriffithsandco.com.../services.aspx

Salisbury and Amesbury

or

http://www.williambache.co.uk/contact-our-team

Whaddon, Salisbury

[ConfusedOne]

Do You know of anyone closer?

Hi RM

Thanks for dropping by and taking interest in my case. I do not no where my case will be heard (if it is), however do you know of anyone closer? The ones that you suggest are an hour plus away. I am in very North Wiltshire, so somewhere around or in Swindon (ideally), stretching out as far as Bath (West) and Newbury (East) would be much easier, not that I wont travel, obviously I will go anywhere for the best representation, however I'm sure being clsoer would make for better ongoing communication, particularly as I am the kind of person who perfers to meet rather than use the phone?

THANK YOU.

[Saffron]

Confused One, sols that specialise in this field are few and far between. RF will only recommend ones she has dealt with or that have been recommended to her by someone she trusts. Poor legal representation can have devastating consequences.

You could always contact sols that are closer to you and ask them whether they have a proven track record of successfully defending false allegations of sexual assault. (NOT just defending against allegations of sexual assault, there is a big difference.)