My son was arrested

[polkadotpenny]

NC for this little beauty and it's going to be a long one, so please bare with me.

Little bit of background. My son is mid 20s, been dating this girl who was 22 for about 6 months. I met her four times and on each occasion I got a bad feeling about her. Anyway, this one time she was around and I was chatting to her and she said something like 'he's so
annoying', so I asked her what was he doing that annoyed her and she replied 'he's too nice, he always asks if I need anything or if he can get me anything and I don't like it.' I was stunned at her dislike of a man being kind and I told her how I would have love to have a man who cared so much. When she went home I told my boy that I just felt there was something not quite right about her. Couldn't put my finger on it but I told him to be wary.

Fast forward end of November my son went to stay at his girlfriends as he did on his days off (she lived with her family). He will generally message me to tell me when he's leaving to come home, this day, nothing. Hours and hours went by, nothing. Finally 10pm the next night I get a call. He had been arrested but from the police phone he couldn't tell me anything. They still hadn't interviewed him at that point. Finally at 1am they released him on bail, to go back at the end of January.

What happened was, they were at a club and she got really pissed and was in a mood, started a row and walked off. My son didn't want her walking the streets alone so he tried to stop her by grabbing her wrist as she was in no fit state to go anywhere. She then walked back into the club and from there apparently called the police to get my son arrested for common assault.

... it got worse.

She wrote a statement stating dates and times where my son had sexually assaulted her, regularly 'beat' her, threatened her with a gun, broke her belongings, carried cocaine with him and on the night in question grabbed her round the throat outside the club and tried to strangle her.

Reading the statement it made me feel sick. It was so unbelievable, but I knew it was all bullshit because how can she tell me he's too nice and then say he's doing all these horrible things?

During this my son was suspended from work due to his arrest.

A few days after the arrest his ex's mother came to collect a few of her belongings that were left behind and even she said 'I have no idea why she's doing this, he's a lovely lad and I've told her to drop it'.

Her statement was all lies. On the dates where these things apparently happened, my son pulled up his rota from work and he had been doing 7am-10pm shifts and when he does those shifts he comes straight home (she lived about 30 miles away, I would have known if he'd got home late or not
come in at all as he would have messaged to let me know and on the dates I just got messages saying 'leaving work now'), so he couldn't have been at hers on those days and his work confirmed he was there.

The cocaine she said he had carried with him was a mini bag of FLOUR, the police took it from her house after he was arrested and obviously tested it! He makes music videos and it was a 'prop'. So that was a bit embarrassing for her.

The threatening with the gun we produced pics where she had held a gun at him (he has BBs that he uses for
target practice and all registered in his name), it was her holding the gun
at him, not the other way round. The police searched my house without anyone being there looking for more drugs and also took all his guns!

Over the last few weeks I've been in touch with the detective in charge of the investigation and she asked to see as much evidence to prove my son was innocent. So on the days where all the apparent abuse/violence happened I got my son to screenshot the conversations the day before, the day off the abuse and the day after, because if any kind of shit went down the conversation would definitely show something. There was nothing! What the detective did say was that none of it made any sense because if he'd been so awful early on in the relationship why not just block him? Why keep inviting him over? They didn't live together so ghosting him would have been simple, instead she was telling him she missed him and wanted him over.

The last piece of the investigation was the CCTV footage from outside the club where my son had apparently tried to strangle her. This took a bit longer to obtain, however it finally was and surprise surprise HE DIDN'T DO IT! All it showed was her stumbling away and my son trying to stop her.

Yesterday we got the news that they've closed he investigation (NFA). His ex literally fabricated the entire thing!

All we are waiting for now is a letter so he can hand to his head office to say he was fucking innocent the whole time
and he's getting all his bb guns back that they took from my house!

So, obviously this has been incredibly stressful. My son is autistic and has mental health issues and the way he regulates this is by the routine of his job. Because of her BS, his routine and his
mental health has really been affected. He couldn't make sense why she'd do this when he had only ever been lovely to her. Seeing my son sob was heartbreaking.

What his pissed me off is that she's not going to be punished for lying. Wasting police time. I did ask the detective and this is what she said 'Unfortunately not, this is the unfair part of my job, where we cannot look to prosecute DV ‘victims’. And I agree, this could have been very damaging.

Anyway, thank goodness, it's all over but it's been hell, but gutted there's nothing we can do against her lying.

@HikingforScenery

We've been on edge for weeks, even knowing he's innocent, but you hear so often how women get away with lying.
I am just so grateful NFA has been taken.

I think going forward I am going to have to try and get it through to him that although a lot of people are nice and kind, he's got to be wary and see the red flags, I saw them but obviously he won't listen to me. It came to all this happening for him to agree I was right.

It's the equivalent of "she was asking for it" and typical of the double standards which are rife.

That’s exactly why I haven’t posted about my son - this isn’t the place where I’d get the support that would be afforded to female victims!

I've just noticed the arrest was at the end of November and he was bailed until the end of January.

What country did this happen in?

I don’t think they all are. I think what it might be is that they find it difficult to understand that others think differently so if they’re nice, they think everyone is nice. It took me ages to realise that other people lie because I don’t unless it’s essential.
A lot of autistics are in relationships with narcissists. If they can learn about this stuff when they’re young, hopefully they can avoid the years of being abused. I keep planning to start a YouTube channel to talk about all this but haven’t got around to it yet.

Definitely try and get a non molestation order.
I wonder if he could go down the route of a civil case of some sort? Not sure how it all works

I’m sorry this happened but in some ways it sounds like it’s a blessing.

She is obviously a very dangerous person and I think this could have easily ended up as a very abusive relationship that he had to endure for years.

This was awful but I’m glad he’s seen the type of person she really is and will hopefully never go back to her.

I think it’s disgusting that she isn’t getting punished for this!

Surely at the very least she should get done for wasting police time!
There would have been officers who’ve been through DV and this could have been very triggering for them and if it went to trial he could have easily been found guilty.
I can’t believe she gets to walk away like nothing happened!

Hopefully this experience has also taught your son to grow up.
Pretending bags of flour are cocaine is very embarrassing for him and he needs to understand that it’s not cool to pretend to do drugs.

As someone who loves rap music, I find these sorts of videos really offensive.
It’s ok to rap about your experiences of drugs and the damage they cause - if you actually have experience of them.
Pretending you take or deal them and glamorise them when you have no experience of them can be very damaging for the rap genre and the people who listen to it.

Women can be offenders, there are registered women sex offender (and no before someone jumps at me saying are the "women") yes they are I worked with them, female from birth.

I have worked with women who have carried out heinous crimes. I have worked with female DA perpetrators (where they have been the protagonist and there is no reactionary violence or abuse towards the woman, they were the sole abuser), women who have viciously attacked members of the public unprovoked.

This idea that women are the saintly sex and can do no wrong, is damaging.

I've witnessed hair be ripped out in chunks, earrings ripped out causing permeant damage, eye gouging. Repeated kicking to the face and body rupturing a spleen. I've had women who have orchestrated and arranged for another vulnerable female to be gang raped for money.

The sheer violence and capacity of harm I have seen some women inflict on others is barbaric. Some mental images and stories have stuck with me for life.

Women have the capacity and capability to be dangerous to society.

To be fair, I wouldn’t want to be around anyone that is into any type of shooting, guns or pretending flour is cocaine. My cat was shot by some twat with a BB gun. Maybe not everyone who has them is a twat, but from that incident and others I’ve known with guns, I’m not interested in knowing anyone who has them, that’s my choice. People will judge and there’s nothing you can do about that.

I’m glad that the police process worked and showed your son had not done what this woman was accusing him of. I would still report the police detective for their attitude to dv victims. Say your son needed to report dv in the future (he’s vulnerable and this is a real possibility)but he had a pattern of going back to his abuser as so often happens. It’s not right that they think, ‘it couldn’t have happened, you would have blocked and ghosted if it had’. Imagine your son not being believed because of this dreadful, wrong attitude.

It might, but those spaces already don’t really work (ask a stepparent).

on balance, male victims, be it of domestic violence or anything else, shouldn’t hide away and if a thread gets attention, good and bad, that’s ok.

I realise that’s easy for me to say, I’m fairly robust and happy to call out the apologists. I do appreciate it’s hard to read that you, your don, your partner, your dad, hasn’t really been abused…

@polkadotpenny what country did this happen in?

It's the UK I believe, due to the fact he's been NFA'd. It's a very British policing term.

No Further Action.

US tend to say "released without charge"

Take stepparent board as an example.

people post when they need help and advice from others when it’s a delicate situation. They may struggle with some aspect of blended families etc. the thread ends up on “active” and there’s usually a nasty judgemental pile on.

Yes, I understood that. I was really querying whether this was within England & Wales, since I don't know the rules on Police Bail in Scotland or NI.

Don’t most people practice things because they want to improve their skills? 🙄

As it happens I didn't know that the bail rules for England & Wales had changed at the end of October and the initial pre-charge bail period can now be longer than 28 days.

In this case, thankfully it seems that things could be proven to be lies. The ‘drugs’ were tested and found to be flour. The CCTV proved that he didn’t assault her. His workplace proved he was in work and therefore not with her etc. I do believe in cases like that where it’s clear the person lied, they should be prosecuted. It must be horrendous to be falsely accused.

However there are definitely people out there that would like to spread the narrative that loads of women are spending their time making false accusations against men. There are people who believe that if an accusation of rape/dv doesn’t get to court or it goes to court and the person is found not guilty, that the accuser should be prosecuted. That’s a very dangerous thought process. Not enough evidence to convict is very different to having evidence the person wasn’t present or having cctv showing what happened etc.

Any space on mumsnet for genuine victims of being falsely accused is likely to get invaded by people who have an agenda. And the genuine victims should want to stay as far away from those as possible.

My mum was a nasty piece of work behind closed doors and made up lies about people. She still does, so I don't find it hard to believe about a woman. She had mental health problems but knowing that doesn't make it any easier when you're the victim of her

I think that OP and her son would benefit from professional support. Counselling for what they’ve been through. Support from people online is a bit hit and miss for anything really. Support from friends/family along with professionals trained in dealing with these things will always be better.