Upside down down under

[blackstone]

Hello everyone. I have just joined this site, and regret that I just discovered it this morning. I don't really need any advice, as I've been living with this lie so long now that there isn't much I haven't found out. I just value the companionship of others sinking in the same boat, and I welcome any comments. It may interest you people in the UK that these things can also happen way down in sleepy New Zealand.

Back on Feb 1 I was accused of historic rape. The police turned up out of the blue and hit me with the accusation that I had raped the daughter of a friend of mine over 20 years ago, when she was 12 or 13. What makes this bizarre is that I have never met her, though when the policewoman named my accuser I recognised the name. With a lawyer present I made a statement to the police. I learnt that she accuses me of having picked her up from school, taken her to an unknown house and raped her. Yet she was in New Plymouth, in the North Island, and at the time I was teaching at a school here in Nelson, which is in the South Island. During the period her accusation covered, I had one school day off, so I would have had to fly up to NP, requiring a stopover in Wellington, rape her, then fly back in time for my wife, who was a stay-at-home mother, not to know I'd left. I have got pay records that confirm this, but the police haven't got back to me, and it's nearly six months now.

In the interview it was revealed that she has accused her father, from whom she is estranged, of having sex with her and running a paedophile ring with her as the victim. He supposedly recruited his friends to join in. Amazingly, he hasn't even been interviewed yet. I contacted the "investigating" police woman after two months to ask what was happening with the case, and she just said, "It's a complex investigation" and had the audacity to suggest that if I want to hurry things along, it just means I must have something to hide. Outrageous! She just expects that I can live for ever with this hanging over me, never knowing when or whether I will be charged.

[Casehardened]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

We usually recommend that any evidence disproving the allegation is not given to the police as they then put it to the complainant who may then change their story to suit the facts.

However in your case this wouldn't be easy as you've never even met the daughter so she will find it difficult to come up with a suitable date when you were available!

She has presumably made a blanket accusation against all her father's friends so thank goodness that you've kept your records safely.

If you feel able to read other member's accounts you will note that that here in the UK an investigation stretching over several months is not unusual (one recent historic case, also involving a teacher, went to 2 years before NFA!!)

The problem is, of course, with historic cases, there is usually no direct physical evidence, only witness statements.

[blackstone]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

We usually recommend that any evidence disproving the allegation is not given to the police as they then put it to the complainant who may then change their story to suit the facts.

However in your case this wouldn't be easy as you've never even met the daughter so she will find it difficult to come up with a suitable date when you were available!

She has presumably made a blanket accusation against all her father's friends so thank goodness that you've kept your records safely.

If you feel able to read other member's accounts you will note that that here in the UK an investigation stretching over several months is not unusual (one recent historic case, also involving a teacher, went to 2 years before NFA!!)

The problem is, of course, with historic cases, there is usually no direct physical evidence, only witness statements.

Thanks for the response, Casehardened.

There is plenty of factual evidence I have kept in reserve in case the nonsense comes to court.

I have a question about police investigation. The policewoman told me that it's a complex case and they are still investigating. But what does she mean? No one has questioned the girl's father yet, and he was supposedly the paedophile ringleader. So the police haven't been interrogating. They also haven't been checking times and places, because if they had, they would have cleared me by now. So what does the word "investigate" even mean when the police use it? Does it mean "leave sitting in a file tray for months to mature"? The Concise Oxford has something different: "conduct an enquiry in order to find the truth". Do the police publish their own dictionary?

It all seems to have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with getting a "result" in order to boost clearance rates for their next internal audit.