Falsely Accused of Rape - Scotland but Living Abroad

[Peter1975]

A belated welcome to DM Scotmun,

I don't think it matters about extradition laws if the interview is voluntary.

You are correct that there is no adverse inference in Scottish law and no comment interviews do seem more common up there.

Your solicitor should hopefully know more than me about the law but I often wonder about the corroboration requirement. In cases of consent for instance, an admission that you had sex puts you at the scene of a crime ... ((Any Scottish Lawyers out there??))

Anyway, I wish you luck and fingers crossed for a speedy resolution.

[slowdown73]

A belated welcome to DM Scotmun,

I don't think it matters about extradition laws if the interview is voluntary.

My understanding is if you are from abroad, the police can only formally interview someone about an alleged offence through the extradition process. That’s the whole purpose of it & there has to be sufficient evidence in order for the police to apply for extradition.

[ScotMun]

A belated welcome to DM Scotmun,

I don't think it matters about extradition laws if the interview is voluntary.

You are correct that there is no adverse inference in Scottish law and no comment interviews do seem more common up there.

Your solicitor should hopefully know more than me about the law but I often wonder about the corroboration requirement. In cases of consent for instance, an admission that you had sex puts you at the scene of a crime ... ((Any Scottish Lawyers out there

Hi all,

The situation is indeed very strange. The police clearly didn’t want me to know they were investigating me yet as they called my girlfriend of three years believing that she was my ex-girlfriend. As soon as the investigating officer found out my girlfriend was not only still with me, but actually living with me the officer (according to my girlfriend) sounded incredibly annoyed/frustrated and almost accusingly said to my girlfriend that “I was under the impression that you were no longer together” which I find very strange. The DC then put my girlfriend on hold for 5 mins while she “processes this information” and then when returning said that no further information would be required and that they are not in a position to talk to me yet.

It was at that point I immediately contacted a legal team and for three months I was given the “not in a position to talk to me” line until last month when they contacted my solicitor saying they do want to talk to me. They were seemingly in no hurry for the interview to take place (they let me schedule it for 8 weeks away which is the next time I’m in the country) but said if I didn’t show up I wouldn’t be able to leave the U.K. again.

@Peter: That’s my understanding of it too. My solicitor said (quote): “I can think of no circumstance whatsoever where you’d want to give them anything other than your name, date of birth and current address because they’ll be looking for any evidence to corroborate this claim and I do not believe they will have anything.”

Guess it’s just a point of waiting for this interview, which I have no doubt will be incredibly unpleasant.

[ScotMun]

Also as for which EU country I live in...I don’t want to give too much away but I live in one of the big 6 EU countries so I’d safely assume we have an extradition agreement.

[ScotMun]

Hi all,

So I wanted to give you an update: the interview happened. First the good news; I was arrested (not officially accused), not charged and ultimately released due to insufficient evidence at this time. My solicitor was no less than outstanding and managed to discern before the interview that they essentially had no evidence and required my statement to corroborate anything, hence I took a no comment stance which admittedly was harder than I thought it would be given all I wanted to do was scream “THIS DID NOT HAPPEN.”

Apparently the police still have some loose ends to tie up which includes talking to some of my close friends on the chance that I intimated to them that intercourse did take place but I’m not concerned about that because I know it didn’t. The solicitor also said that they strongly doubt I’ll ever hear anything again and advised me to try to forget about it and move on with my life although that’s easier said than done I think.

The FA was, weirdly, someone I’d never had any sexual contact with whatsoever. I knew her through work and on the night in question we’d decided to go for drinks (not in a date kind of way; more like a “we have nothing to do so let’s do something” way) and due to her flat being a 30 minute walk away in the dark (we waited a good 15 minutes for a taxi) and her being quite inebriated I offered her my bed while I slept on my couch as I lived only a few minutes away from where we were. By the time I woke up the next morning she’d already gone and we continued to have a normal relationship after so I’d totally forgotten it had even happened. I even have messages from her after the “event” asking if we want to go for dinner some time!

I have to say though, I’m still shaken from that interview. It was without doubt the worst few hours of my life and I’m truly sorry for anyone who has to sit in a room with the police and hear those god awful things said about them when the witness statement is read out. It sickened me to think that this girl could sit in a room and tell such incredibly detailed things about something which just didn’t happen. The person described in that statement was a vile monster and I just don’t understand how someone has it in them to make something like that up with such vivid detail. I feel traumatised just thinking about it and it will take some time to get over, I think.

Given that this was almost four years ago now I know there’s no other evidence the police could use (apart from checking with my own friends but as I said I know this will lead to nothing) I’m going to try to start rebuilding my life and moving on from this.

If you guys have any questions let me know.

[slowdown73]

Did your solicitor advise you to do a no comment interview? In my view, a no comment interview looks like you have something to hide. If you haven’t done anything like you say, then it’s better to say that and if you still have those text messages after the accuser claims it happened then that’s good evidence to show the police. Why would someone continue to contact you if you had committed such an awful act?!

[ScotMun]

Yeah I took that stance under legal advice from my solicitor. I initially wanted to do exactly as you suggested but was told this would potentially lead to more issues as well as giving the FA a chance to respond to my statement and reword her claim.

The corroboration requirement in Scotland is another thing in that it essentially makes it impossible for the police to issue a charge without there being two separate sources of proof that intercourse even took place, so going no comment essentially doesn’t confirm a single element of her allegation and renders it dead in the water without anything else to support; which there isn’t.

[Pond31]

Yeah I took that stance under legal advice from my solicitor. I initially wanted to do exactly as you suggested but was told this would potentially lead to more issues as well as giving the FA a chance to respond to my statement and reword her claim.

The corroboration requirement in Scotland is another thing in that it essentially makes it impossible for the police to issue a charge without there being two separate sources of proof that intercourse even took place, so going no comment essentially doesn’t confirm a single element of her allegation and renders it dead in the water without anything else to support; which there isn’t.

hmm this is an interesting approach to law. So what you are saying is that if there is no corroboration, such as witnesses, DNA or you confirming details then the cases are dead in the water in Scotland? That seems a very sensible way of doing things as basically if it is one persons word against someones else's then the case will not stand. The rest of the UK should follows this method.

I actually gave a "no comment interview" on my first interview. The duty solicitor I had told me too. The interesting thing is that when I started to say "no comment" the investigating officer added "So on advice of you solicitor, you are giving no comment". I think the investigating officer was trying to make the no comment appear less suspicious by saying that i was only doing it on advice of my solicitor rather than of my own accord.

Pond31

[Caught red handed]

Out of curiosity... Did you do a written statement after giving your no comment interview?

[Peter1975]

It's worth repeating for the readers here that Pond is in Northern Ireland where the law works slightly differently and Scottish law is completely different with the corroboration requirement and the absence of adverse inference

I would stress that a NC interview should only be given under the advice of a solicitor in whatever country you are in as each case is different. There is no magic bullet or special code to enter. You cannot outsmart the law. You need a good solicitor.


This all sounds promising though Scotsmun. Fingers crossed you will be able to put this behind you. Curiously enough I have seen a couple of Scottish cases where they simply don't hear any more, there doesn't seem to be a concept of a formal NFA up there.