MSN from son's ex

[Distressed parent]

Basically accusing him of sexual assault (not rape) even though some of the "facts" she cites we know to be false. This happened way back in April, allegedly in our house. Could this stick and if so what how the heck so we deal with it?

Absolutely terrified. He's only 19 and his life could be ruined.

[Rights Fighter]

Save the MSN message of course.

From now on make a diary note of everything this girl does and says and keep all of it.

There isn't much else that you can do at the moment. If you go to Plod shop you'll find they will probably track her down and try to get her to lay charges in order to "up" their rape conviction rates.

I know this does not sound helpful but - just do nothing else. She's probably trying to get a reaction. Don't give her one.

Do not contact her.

[Distressed parent]

Don't worry, have no intention of going to Police. We were targeted scores of times a few years ago by antisocial youths because our other son is disabled and the Police did NOTHING. Not my favourite people.

No intention of contacting her either and have told son not to: not that he would, as far as he was concerned all was sadly over but done with. Last time he and she spoke (again via MSN) after the break up (this was around June time) it was perfectly friendly, if regretful, and she had contacted him, so what she's playing at now,God knows.

[Rights Fighter]

Hopefully the "perfectly friendly if regretful" MSN chat is saved to the machine too. Make sure you copy and paste it into Word or whatever word processing programme you use.

[Distressed parent]

Son says his MSN is set to save everything.

Just had a dreadful thought. After she first contacted and then signed off, my hub signed back in to speak further - mainy because he didn't know at first what the heck she was going on about. Would this count against us?

[Rights Fighter]

I shouldn't think so - he was trying to find out what was going on. In fact I had a similar experience the other night. I attended a successful appeal against conviction last Thursday. I was in MSN the night before last and the stepson of the appellant appeared to be online. I asked "him" how he was and mentioned the appeal. Back came "f**k U".

I rang his mum yesterday as this is not like him at all. It turns out he was out of the house that night, at the time of the convo, with his mum, in a house with no internet connection. Apparently this has happened before so it's possible that he gave his password to some of his teenage friends who decided to misuse it.

Back to you - maybe it wasn't the girl but somebody else who was posing as her?

Copy and paste all of the convos into documents, exactly as they are without changing anything.

[Distressed parent]

No, it was definitely her; she actually contacted us before to ask us to tell son she was going to a different Uni (had originally planned to attend the one he's at), and in fact they had a "chat" (MSN or phone, can't recall) then too, back in August. Hence even more mystified that she's pulling the "he was a bully and emotionally blackmailed/pressured me into doing things I didn't want" - hub was in the next door room at the time, and she stayed the rest of the weekend, even arranging to take a later train!

[Rights Fighter]

That doesn't persuade me that she was the same person who MSN'd talking about doing "things she didn't want to do".

I'm not quite sure I understand the last sentence:

hub was in the next door room at the time, and she stayed the rest of the weekend, even arranging to take a later train!

She stayed where? And how does her taking a later train (presumably on the night she came into MSN to make her allegations) relate to the allegations she is now making?

[Distressed parent]

The weekend of the original alleged 'incident': they were not alone in the house at any time. She stayed another whole night and day (slept in lounge all through, we were happy to oblige), had breakfast with us, went out with son, spent more time at home, then went home later. No indication of any kind that anything was wrong: no excuses to go home early, nothing.