Still recovering from false accusation.

[vinnieox]

Heya, I'm really new to this so forgive me if I do anything wrong aha,

I was falsely accused of rape when I was 13 years old by a girl who was 12. I believed me and this girl were good friends, we were there for each other, I helped her through a lot, but after a while I started to realise something.. Wasn't quite right with her, she was obsessed with me, she'd wait outside my house, steal clothes from my room to wear for herself, send me many, many text messages, the list goes on.

One night me and another friend went to go see her sister, on our way back to my house we came across the creature who accused me in a near by park, we spoke alone breifly whilst my friend sat near by when she tried to take my hand to touch herself, which I instatly pulled it away, she then grabbed hold of the t shirt I was wearing to try and pull me, in her words 'to the river' so we could be alone.

I got away from her but she put both her feet on mine (baring in mind she was slightly over weight for her age) and screamed rape, when almost conveniently her friends came running into the park and asked what was going on. They started shouting saying how they could smell alcohol on us, we a glass of cider at a BBQ then evening, whilst the girl was crying saying I'd raped her.

The next day I got a knock at the door, I was arrested for rape and kept in a cell for 11 hours, it was humiliating, evening having my shoe laces taken away from me, I wanted to die there and then. I left the police station at about 11pm that night after giving my statement.

I waited about 3 months in constant worry, I tried to kill myself, I self harmed, got drunk almost every day on what ever I could. My life pretty much collapsed at such a young age. Then one day I got a knock at the front door from a police man coming to tell me the vile girl had dropped the charges, out of the blue, like she'd just thought 'oh he's learnt my lesson', which I later found out from her that is what she was planning, just to teach me a lesson.

I didn't know what to think, or do. Some people in school weren't that much nicer either, branded a rapist, having to prove that I did nothing wrong by bringing letters from the police into school, humiliating. I'm now 18, and I'm not totally over what happened to me, never will be,writing this was quite difficult as it brought back a lot of memories and this is the first time in years I've actually written something like this.

What happened has destroyed my trust, and I've tried for years to build that back up, you've just got to believe in that you know you did nothing wrong, you're the person who knows the truth, being falsly accused is a horrible thing to go through, but you know the truth of what happened.

Sorry for typing so much I didn't quite realise how much I'd put. Thank you for reading.

[whatsgoingon?]

Your story both saddened and angered me - unfortunately , you're not the first young lad this has happened to, we have had several on here.

One thing that strikes me about your case is .... when the girl made this allegation to the police they should have immediately taken her in for medical and forensic tests. The police now have a special unit for this , whether they did then, I don't know. In any case, she should have been examined and they would at least have been able to determine whether she'd had sexual intercourse or not and whether force had been used. Do you know if this was done?

To keep you in for 11 hours as a 13 year old child is just unbelievable! Are you getting any psycological help? Have you ever tried to find out if you have any recourse possible? Did you or your soliciotr (if you had one) get a copy of your custody notes from the police?
Do you know if the police followed the proper procedures at the time?

[Casehardened]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

I've moved your post into it's own thread so that any responses won't get confused with Steve's.

I've also split your post into paragraphs as this makes for easier reading and understanding of your situation.

[vinnieox]

Hey thank you for replying!

The girl wasn't examined because I believe she changed her accusation to attempted rape rather than full blown, in my mind that really does point to the fact she was lying because of the drastic change before she was going to be examined. Weird!

Nothing really came of it once she admitted she had lied, the police officer in charge of the case exact words were 'it would not be in the public interest to charge the girl' I'm not sure why they came up with that little gem but hey ho, I never heard from my solicitor once the case was dropped, maybe I should of contacted him but I guess I was in a form of shock.

I was offered therapy but at the time I turned it down because I just wanted to move on, but now I wish I had taken it as I do have slight anger problems, very bad anxiety and depression. But I am still managing to hold a somewhat normal life, relationship, completed college, looking for a job, lots of friends.

Even though what happened does still trouble me, I've learnt to try and push it aside as much as I can, I've tried all different types of anti depressants and they've all either made me worse and done nothing at all, so I guess it's up to me to sort things my self out.

[Casehardened]

The girl wasn't examined because I believe she changed her accusation to attempted rape rather than full blown, in my mind that really does point to the fact she was lying because of the drastic change before she was going to be examined. Weird!

Nothing really came of it once she admitted she had lied, the police officer in charge of the case exact words were 'it would not be in the public interest to charge the girl' I'm not sure why they came up with that little gem but hey ho, I never heard from my solicitor once the case was dropped, maybe I should of contacted him but I guess I was in a form of shock.

I can confirm that the 'victim' is quite entitled to refuse a medical examination, what that says about their motives for making the accusation I can only imagine, OTOH it does make a NFA more likely.

With the extreme reluctance of of the CPS to bring any prosecutions for PCJ at all against FA's, I'd say it was never going to happen in the case of a minor, and to be fair, whatever reasons an adolescent female may have for making a FA will probably not be solved by a spell in an institution.

With regard to you moving on with life, might it help if you knew how this girl's life is turning out? Obviously I'm not suggesting you get in touch with her but you may be able to discretely find out through friends or social media.

She was obviously besotted with you and couldn't cope with your growing apart and it might settle your thoughts if you knew how she has also moved on from this incident.

[whatsgoingon?]

I can confirm that the 'victim' is quite entitled to refuse a medical examination, what that says about their motives for making the accusation I can only imagine, OTOH it does make a NFA more likely.

I didn't know this, but I suppose it makes sense - as you say, doesn't look too good and I would have thought any discerning OIC would have looked at it with scepticism.
It seems to me that the rights of children who are falsely accused are sometimes ignored in the same way or perhaps more so than with adults.
Now you are 18 , if you think you were badly or wrongly treated while in custody you could make a complaint to the police force in question (which probably won't get you very far) or write to your MP just to make him/her aware of your experience.

One of the serious consequences of FA's is that the real victim is left high and dry to pick up the pieces and suffer the consequences of potentially very damaging events on their own and with no official recognition.

In your case, you seem to have done extremely well - your survival mechanisms are obviously functioning well

I agree with you on the anti-depressants issue, they can help to tide people over for short periods, but if they don't do you any good, don't take them. Talking helps some people , not others. If you wanted to you could probably get to see a therapist or councillor through your GP.

There are also therapists who work exclusively with men on such things as anger management and assertiveness either individually or in chat groups. You can Google these : Men's chat groups /therapy for men etc.

Sport, creativity, and nature related past-times are also great ways of helping you cope with something that has been damaging - althoug you can never take something like that away, you can find ways of living with it reasonably comfortably, even if there are occasional 'blibs' (as you seem to be doing) .

The fact you've gone through college, and have alot of friends says alot about you. I'm sure the girl in question isn't doing so well, she probably already had a whole bunch of problems when you met her, but that's not your responsibility.

[vinnieox]

Ive had a little snoop on the girls Facebook once or twice when she's 'accidentally' tried to re add me, or 'mistaken' someone I'm close to for someone else, which is total bs, and well to put it as well as I can she's gotten very fat, very spotty and doesn't have many friends, well she never really did have many friends and during school after what happened, as petty as it sounds I made it my mission to make people dislike her, which seemed to of worked.

She was very obsessed with me, if she'd found out I'd gotten with someone, or even kissed someone she'd get herself, or pretended to. I caught her out once with that because she came to my house with plasters on clutching a razor blade, I turned up the heating and her sweat made the plasters come off and there was no marks on her arms, majorly creepy.

I don't think I'm going to bother with making a complaint, as I know all I'll get is some short apology which is what they gave me a few weeks after the charges were dropped.

Yeah I think I seem to have good survival mechanism's with some of the things I went through in my teenage years but I've managed to come through the other side without strangling anybody haha. Ive tried the whole therapy thing when I was diagnosed with an eating disorder when I was 12, it didn't really help me and once again I learnt to deal with it myself. And I'd try sports and things like that but I broke both my legs (not at the same time) so things are a little difficult with that. I find the best way to cheer my self up if I'm feeling down is just to see some friends or spend time with my other half, either perks me back up again aha!