Brother Falsely Accused of Sexual Assault

[new6]

Hello, I am brand new to this forum and in real need of guidance.

My brother was falsley accused of 'sexual assault' 12 weeks ago. Since then he had not told me or the rest of my family until 3 days ago. The alleged offence took place over a year ago with his step daughter who was a minor at the time and there is no evidence either way but the Mom is standing by her daughter.

He has been arrested and charged and went through a 3 hour interview with the police without a solicitor. He is now released on bail and at home with the family, we are all shell shocked and need to know what is the next step.

I fear that with no solicitor and no experience of a police interview before he had no guidance during the interview and probably did himself more damage than good.

I also fear he is burying his head in the sand and hoping it will all go away but in the mean time a case is being built against him that he needs to defend.

He has suffered from depression in the past and I think this has pushed him back into himself and he is not fighting his own corner.

Q What is 'sexual assault' is it a lesser offerce than 'rape'?
Q Can our solicitor request to hear the interview tapes?
Q If found guilty will he go to prison?

I am in a world of confusion that is new to me and my family and really some guidance...

Thanks

[tfotsimdttm]

Hi,
I myself have been falsely accused as have many others on this board.

Lets get the negative out of the way 1st.

Unfortunately the way the law works at the moment means that normally an allegation is all that is required to get you in front of a Jury and then you have a 50/50 chance that he will go to prison for up to 10 years.
He would be eligible for parole after 5 years if he is a model prisoner but it would be unlikely he would get release at this point unless he was very sorry for committing the offence and promises not to do it again.
He would have to sign the sex offenders register and then would lead a life of running past schools, not attending any leisure fascilities containing children and then having social services putting any of his children, present or future, on the at risk register and generally making life even more miserable.
I am sorry if this sounds bleak but you have to get your brother back on track as i am only painting a realistic picture which will only get worse if he continues to bury his head.

Now the positive.

The first thing you should do is get a solicitor who specialises in sexual offences.

If you go to your local citizens advice bureau they will be able to point you in the direction of a good solicitor.

It is imperative that your solicitor gets all of the evidence against your brother INCLUDING the statements that the prosecution are not intending to use. (these often contain evidence that would help the defence).

He must coalate as many witness's as he can from the time of the alleged offence and try to build up a chronology of events leading up to the allegation.

You have not mentioned if he is still in contact with the accusers mother, it is imperative also that DOES NOT CONTACT HER IN ANY WAY!
If she contacts him or anyone else in the family, write it down and include time, date, location and what was said, it is the details like this that win cases.

He should buy a voice recorder for his landline and tell everyone to use that line only in all matters.(this advice has been the best i have ever recieved).

You also need to get him to the doctors so he can get some qualified help.
Normally they make pyschologists available who really do make a difference (you can go with him if he needs the support).

Your brother has to fight this, if he sees you putting the effort in it might well get him motivated, do not give up, push him all the way to the CAB if you have to.

Any other advice i can give, Just ask

tfotsimdttm

[new6]

Thanks for the reply,

It looks a bit bleak from what you have said but its best to know the worst at this stage. My brother is no longer in contact with the Mother however he was until recently. It now seems that the Mother is driving the accusations and as such we have cut all contact but I am worried about what may have been said upto now.

[tfotsimdttm]

The solicitor will be able to find out what was said during that 3 hr interview, it does worry me that your brother had no duty solicitor present, but this can not be un-done so it will need to be sorted out as soon as possible by his solicitor when appointed.

[new6]

I have been to the CAB today and they gave me a list of solicitors that could help. My Brother and I are seeing two firms on Thursday however I spoke with one firm in detail who only deal with Criminal cases and they seemed to be very well briefed in this process.

I am also very concerned about the fact that my brother had no legal representation during the police interview.

I know he is not guilty of any of this but I am very worried and want to do everything in my power to help him and help minimise the damage that the interview and his naivety of the process may already have done.

Thanks for your support

Regards

New6

[tfotsimdttm]

you are welcome to the support, just make sure you keep us updated on your progress.
Although these boards are full of genuine people who really are interested in helping, please be mindful that some do have their own agenda, and not all advice is good.

Try to get your brother down the doctors, this type of allegation can lead to a form of post traumatic stress, i know from experience.

tfotsimdttm

[new6]

Should we tell our GP exactly what is happening wrt the allogations? My brother may well have post traumatic stress and I have not been eating properly and have been physically sick from the stress...

Regards

New6

[tfotsimdttm]

I have completely confided in my doctor and have found him to be very supportive and helpful.

This also helped when the social services asked for a medical report for the child protection conference, he only gave them the information that they asked for and refused to comment on anything other than my parenting skills.

i can only go on my own personal experiance but i have had no problems at all from telling my doc exactly what has been going on.

I too have trouble sleeping and eating, there are build up milkshakes that you can buy in the supermarket ?1.60 for 4, these help you add calories and also improve your appetite, for sleeping i try to stay awake! (reverse psychology), this does work! failing this i watch big brother (enough to put anyone to sleep)

Have you managed to get anything out of your brother yet? he really does need to sit down and write his own version of events, including witness addresses and phone numbers, all of this must be given to your sol so he can build up an adequate defence.

With historic allegations, very often you find yourself in a position where you only have your word against theirs, unfortunately the first thing that anyone reading a newspaper article about sexual allegations,AUTOMATICALLY BELIEVE THE ACCUSER,(this only tends to happen with sexual allegations and wife abuse) JURIES ARE NO DIFFERENT.
If he does NOT PROVE HIS INNOCENCE it is very likely that he will go to prison for life.
The accuser will be paid anything between ?15,000 - ?25,000 for her being "traumatised by the abuse". She will never have to give this money back even if your Brother was to successfully appeal his conviction(this can take years)

Dependent on the wording the judge uses at the successful appeal hearing your Brother may well then be able to claim compensation for the time that he stayed as a guest of her majesty, BUT, he will have to give back 25% of this amount to "pay for his board and lodge" whilst he was in prison.

Your brother would then have a case against his accuser but the CPS are very unwilling to proceed with this as they do not want this to go public as it "may stop genuine people who have been abused from coming forward" .

There are changes in the pipeline, but unfortunately they may well come too late for your Brother and myself, we have to rely on the details, unfounded allegations are not normally written by a script writer, therefore they do not tend to have the substance to stand up, unfortunately when it is family making the allegations they have all the information they need to make them believable, so you have to work harder to find the discrepencies, (my ex-wife contradicted herself a number of times in her statement, i had to read this statement literally dozens of times, each time pulling out new discrepencies).
Nobody knows more than your brother, HE HAS TO DO THIS, then let his sol know what he has found.

You are not alone, what you are both feeling is perfectly normal bodily responses that are unfortunately triggered by an event like this. You can treat the symptoms but not the cause, only time will deal with that so try to keep yourself busy, perhaps plan a holiday? (even a weekend away would do you all good).

Hope this helps.

[Sarah11]

Hi,
Although I don't know what you or your brother are going through in terms of the allegations made against him (I was raped in Dec and made a police report), I can well understand the stress both physical and mental and personally think that with the GP honesty is the best policy. You probably could both do with additional support from your respective doctors and I would think that for your brother, being open with his GP may help as evidence in a legal case if his GP is requested to provide any medical notes.
Good luck both of you
xxx

[Saffron]

Originally posted by new6@7th June 2005 - 08:03 AM
Should we tell our GP exactly what is happening wrt the allogations? My brother may well have post traumatic stress and I have not been eating properly and have been physically sick from the stress...

Regards

New6

Quoted post

Hi

You should definitely tell the doctor everything. If the doctor doesn't know, he wont be able to help. My husband suffered exactly the same as your brother, and the doctor was fantastic. he put him in touch with a counsellor, and prescribed medication. he was also able to put him in touch with a support group for self-harmers (yes, it had got that bad). Your doctor will be bound by the hippocratic oath, and will not under any circumstances reveal what you tell him to anyone else.

You need to get yourself some help as well. i went to a counsellor when my husband was in prison (for the same offence as your brother, and he is innocent as well) and I found it very helpful. As the "supporter" of the wrongly accused person, it can be exceptionally stressful for you. He will probably lean on you very heavily over the next few months, so you need to make sure you look after yourself as well as him.

All the advice you have been given here is good. You should find a lot of support on this site.

Good luck,

Saffron

[new6]

All,

I have just contacted FASO and they have reiterated what you have all said to now.

It?s clear we need a good solicitor and as such can anyone recommend a solicitor who specialises in defending charges of Sexual Assault who is located in the Staffordshire and/or Midlands region?

Thanks for all your support

New

[tfotsimdttm]

KEEP YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH THE SOLICITOR THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE.

You can always change him at any time, he will be able to get the ball rolling by obtaining the tapes of your Brother's interview.

[Rights Fighter]

I have emailed you via this site with regards to solicitors.

Your brother will be able to view the accuser's police video interview and they should immediately apply for the FULL transcripts of that video.

In law, rape does not constitute full penetration so her hymen being intact won't make any difference unless she claims he penetrated her fully. I have one appeal ongoing where the accuser claimed to have been penetrated 1/2 centimetre so he was convicted of rape on that testimony.

Was your brother offered the use of a solicitor prior to interview? If not, the officers involved should be rigorously cross-examined on that point at trial, if it comes to that. He should be given the tapes of each interview and also the transcripts. If possible these should be the full transcripts and not the summaries - your solicitor will need to request this. Summaries of police interviews of defendants/suspects hide a multitude of sins - one I dealt with:

Interviewer: "Your accuser said you did ..........."
Defendant: "True"

The police had deleted the words "that's not" from the transcript and that is what the jury went into their deliberations with.

RF

[new6]

Hi All

My Brother has been back to the Police Station and has now been officially charged and will be attending magistrates court shortly for the first of what I am told is going to be a number of hearing that will develop to Crown Court.

Can you tell me at what point in the process this could or will appear in the local news papers? and will he be named or just referred to as a 'local man'?

Is there any actions we can take to ensure annonimity throughout this process?

Thanks in Advance

New6

[Saffron]

It's difficult to say. Some local rags don't bother reporting until a verdict/sentencing has been passed, and some will leap on it straight away. As this case involves a child, I would guess that the press will deem it to be "in the public interests" and may get onto it immediately.

You have no rights to anonymity at all, I'm afraid. This is unbelievably harsh, but sadly true. When my husband was sentenced, the local paper published his full name and address, and even the number of our children and the colour of my hair! This left myself and our son in fear of reprisals and neighbours stares.

All I can say is that todays papers are tomorrow's chip wrappers. It's horrible to read such lies about a loved one, but you know the truth. And people have very short memories.

Good luck, thinking of you x