Would really appreciate some help and advice

[Qwerty]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come across that way. I know there's support on here, I was looking for a helpline or something official to give me some solid advice. My head's just all over the place, I've been over & over it and I just want it all to finish. I have people on here telling me not to give the passport, then I have my sol on the other end of the phone repeatedly telling me she does this kind of case all the time and the passport needs to be given as soon as possible. Why does the bail date take so long? I'm tearing my hair out.

[whatsgoingon?]

Hi Qwerty - it's awful isn't it? I really sympathise - you know you've not done anything wrong and then there all theis s**** to try and get your your head round. As far as giving evidence over some people have done this and their case has been NFA'd because of it. Others have given important evidence and it's been distorted etc. In the end you have to take your own decisions based on the advice you recieve from different sources and your gut feelings and stick by them.
Do you trust your solicitor? Do you know that she's dealt with lots of these cases? Have you tried to find out?
We had a solicitor who told us lots of things including that he'd done lots of similar cases and actually, it turned out that he was a dangerous bulls******r . That may NOT be the case with your solicitor at all but it's important to know who is defending you and what their record is.
All the best
WGO

[Boys don't cry]

Hi Qwerty.

I agree with Saffron and Faith about the dates.

NYE will be hard for her to change but 1985 quite easy:
She will say that she remember graphic details being "raped" but she might have made a mistake about the year and her age because it was quite a long time ago but she will never forget what happened to her.

Here is a fact:My accuser told the police she slept with another man the day I supposely "raped" her.
The police then asked her "Are you trying to mislead us?"
And by miracle the date changed by 3 days and I knew the exact date was not 3 days but 3 weeks before.
I still went to court.

I wouldn't present your brother's passeport to your duty solicitor.
I read in 2 forums that you must keep your cards close to your chest and at the time I was in your "shoes" I didn't know.
My solicitor told me to stop giving evidence to the police as I even wrote and visited them several times.

When I went to court the prosecution barrister told me it was to admit.

Take care,I do not want to influence you but only to give you my opinion and when I read:

I'm tearing my hair out.

I had to get involved.

Did you check your solicitor's experience?

[Boys don't cry]

Whatsgoingon?

I had to edit my previous post as I just wrote:
"Hopefully you would read his and warn you about duty solicitors."

You are perfectly right indeed.

[whatsgoingon?]

That's OK BDC _ I'd already written the following:

Qwerty -I can absolutely warn you against the duty solicitor (who was an agency solicitor in my son's case) . First of all he should have been advised him to give a 'no comment statement'. The solicitor whose card this one gave him was .... um.... not sure what I'd say... a nightmare? He still does feature in my nightmares actually because on several occasions I got the distinct impression he was working for the prosecution (no joke!).My son was definately innocent of what was being claimed but his case was particularly complicated because it involved a third person. This sol began by saying it was quite obvious what had happened and bit by bit started changing his tune till it got VERY scarey.

The very best thing we did (and I have to say, it took a while to pursuade my son to do so) was to CHANGE TO A SPECIALISED SOLICITOR It's not always possible and can be a bit tricky because you need to have reasons but it was the difference between night and day. As it happened, the solicitor and barrister we were advised on this site were both brilliant. . He was found not guilty, as was the other defendant, but I'd rather not think about what could have happened had we not changed.
I hope I haven't scared or worried you unduly... just making the point that it's really worth trying to find out how just how competant your solicitor is in these matters.
All the best.

[Saffron]

Qwerty, a small note about my experience.
My hubby's FA's initial statement began with the words (verbatim) "I am here because I woke up to find a colleague having sex with me, and I had not consented to it". (it was a work night out)
Later, (after she had been presented with solid PROOF that the semen found inside her actually belonged to another man) she changed her testimony to "I woke up and a colleague was touching my vagina, which I had not consented to".

She claimed in court that they had only talked about work, but when challenged she admitted that they had talked extensively about sex.
She tried to say that she wasn't drunk, she had only had 4 beers, but under cross examination she agreed that she had drunk 4 bottles of beer and at least 4 tequila shots.
She also admitted that she had got undressed in front of my husband; climbed into bed. There is some dispute as to whether she invited him to join her: he says she did, she says she didn't. In court she claimed that she "trusted" him and that she didn't expect him to see this as a "come-on".

So, her testimony went from "he was having sex with me" to "He was touching my vagina". This testimony changed after the forensics had proven that no sex had taken place!
And bear in mind that she reported immediately. I mean the day after the alleged assault. So no room for memory loss, right?
Wrong.
Convicted. Belmarsh. Then Elmley. Both 100+ miles from our home.

Safeguard yourself, please. Prepare for the worst and rejoice in the best.

[Faith]

At the end of the day Qwerty, you must act on your own gut instincts. We can only advise based on limited knowledge of your case and our own experiences. Nobody knows the case like you do and there may be specifics that we don't know about that is prompting your solicitor to suggest handing the passport over.

My reply remains the same as the others you have received...all that is likely going to happen is that the police will take this information back to the accuser and she would say 'it was such a long time ago, perhaps I got the days/years mixed up. Ive tried to block it out because of the trauma'

Basically that is her opportunity to alter her statement and put a statement forward to the court, if it gets that far, that takes your main line of defence into account and explains it away. However, if you keep it to yourself and present it post statement (again, it may not get that far) then you are putting a serious doubt on the reliability of her statement and of her overall.

I must stress though, that we are not solicitors here, nor do we know your case so any advice offered here (and anywhere else, aside from legal representation that has had full disclosure of your case) should be taken with that in mind.

My reccommendation...do as whatsgoingon and BDC say...check out this solicitor to see how often they do actually deal with these cases. Contact a specialist solicitor, if only for a second opinion. If they back up the duty sol then I would say that's strong enough to go for it. If not, then you have to weigh up yourself which is the best path to take.

It's not easy. Please keep coming back for support.
Take a look at some of the stickies on the Useful Information section. Do a google search for PAFAA and FASO too...both of these assist people who have been falsely accused.

[Saffron]

Excellent response Faith, thank you

[whatsgoingon?]

Seconded... Qwerty brings up a sad point ... the absence of a helpline

[Faith]

FASO has a helpline!
I know, because I work on it sometimes.

[Qwerty]

I don't know what to do now. My sol says she's emailed the plod's and told them about the passport. I've got the actual passport here in my possession. But now they know of it then I guess that gives the police the chance to go back to the woman and inform her of it. There's nothing I can do about that now My sol told me that the woman cannot change her statement once she's signed it, but from what you're saying she can?

The thing is, she's got NO evidence (obviously, because it didn't happen). Would the CPS really charge someone and send a case to court when it happened 28 years ago and there's not a scrap of evidence to back up this woman's words? There's no weight to her story, it's just words. I thought you had to have evidence to charge someone?

I rang the FASO helpline this evening. Tbh the woman I spoke to didn't help at all, she just told me to jog my memory (like I haven't been for every second of the last 2 weeks) and write everything down. I've done nothing but rack my brains trying to remember anything about that night but it's a blank.

I wish I'd kept the passport secret, but when I first found out my brother had it I was ecstatic- I thought it would be the defining evidence we needed to prove she is a liar! I couldn't wait to tell the sol as I thought it would mean the case would be dropped pretty much immediately. I never thought she would have the chance to change her mind on the date- and even if she does change her mind, what date will she pluck out of the air? Can she decide after saying it was definitely NYE that she actually can't remember what day/month it was, and just that it was 'sometime in 1985'? To me that would weaken her reliability as a person- saying it's DEFINITELY 100% a certain date and then all of a sudden being 'oh I'm so traumatised I can't even remember the month'.

[Faith]

`

I rang the FASO helpline this evening. Tbh the woman I spoke to didn't help at all, she just told me to jog my memory (like I haven't been for every second of the last 2 weeks) and write everything down.
.

What did you expect her to do?

[Casehardened]

Regarding disclosure to the police of your brother's absence at the critical time , what's done is done, however all is not lost.

Should it go to court (and regarding your thoughts about 'evidence', I raised the same point as you did, and the OIC replied that "we have evidence, the accuser's statement"!!) your barrister will have a copy of her original statement and any revised one that she subsequently makes, and will be able to cross-examine her on any significant discrepancies between them.

This will demonstrate to the jury that she is, at the best a forgetful, and at the worst an unreliable, witness.

NB. Statements can't (shouldn't!) be altered once they've been signed off; however a witness can make as many fresh statements as they wish!

[Qwerty]

What did you expect her to do?

Give me more information on what will be happening at the CPS/Police as I have no clue about the justice system.

[Casehardened]

Give me more information on what will be happening at the CPS/Police as I have no clue about the justice system.

Have you read:
http://www.daftmoo.org.uk/mooforum/s...at-happens-now