To not automatically support my male friend (potentially triggering!)

[User14356]

Agh this is keeping me up tonight, sorry if it’s a bit rambly

My very close, male friend (totally platonic) picked up a woman last weekend at a club. I had left earlier in the night, from what I was told, they were drunk, she had a screaming argument with her friend and then he took her home. Things were done but they didn’t have full sex.

Cut to today and I get a worried message from my male friend saying he has been contacted by this girl saying he took advantage, he is a sex offender and that she’s going to go to the police. This text message was sent at 4am and badly spelled so the assumption is that she was drunk.

I want to believe my friend, but I’m now massively morally split, between not wanting to call this girl a liar, but then not being there for him if the accusations are blown out or false. For now, I’ve been supportive. Is there any way to manage this situation without taking sides- AIBU to have doubts about my friend?

Both men and women are perfectly entitled to get drunk if they want to.

But they would be stupid to. As the law stands drunkenness is not a defence against rape. It is a reason for non-consent to apply however.

Quite Laguna as I said I was drunk and dh was drunk when we first met and slept together neither of us took advantage of each other .

The very fact you’re asking whether you are unreasonable to doubt your friend is all the answer you need. So, for example, if I was in the exact same situation as you but the man in question was my brother or my ex husband - I wouldn’t be on mumsnet asking if it was unreasonable to have doubts. Why? Because I would have no doubts. None. Zilch. Nada.

I disagree. The main issue seems to be that the OP doesn’t want to call this girl a liar / thinks that’s morally wrong. Which is imo a very good and moral thought.

If my brother was in this situation:
Would I believe that he was guilty? No. Would I categorically deny that he might have been in a position where he genuinely believed that she was giving enthusiastic consent but she actually did not (e.g. he might have been too drunk to realise how drunk she was)? No. That could probably happen. (Rather easily, actually. I also know - from experience - that certain people can be incredibly intoxicated but don’t actually act like one might expect them to...)

Anyhow. I would probably not interact with my brother’s accuser or call her a liar. I’d tell him to make screenshots of everything from this evening (Facebook posts from her friends etc) and contact a solicitor ASAP.

And I’d probably tell him that he was a fucking idiot.

Back to the OP: what does ‘he took her home’ even mean? (Did he carry her...?)

teach girls not to get drunk and have sex with drunk men.

well that's the point isn't it. Society already teaches this lesson to girls with the idea that if you get drunk and sleep with strange men, you're a slut and deserve everything you get. Whereas men are considered studs for doing the same.

It's entirely sensible as a parent to try and counteract some of these messages that boys receive, by making them aware of the possible consequences of drunk one night stands, because they certainly aren't encouraged to think about the consequences very much otherwise. Instead society teaches boys to "get sex" off girls whenever they can, and if they turn down any opportunity for sex (even dubious opportunities, like the one detailed in OPs post) there must be something wrong with them and they are unmanly.

It's a toxic message all around.

I have to say, if someone had maliciously accused me of assault, and the CPS were too cowardly to prosecute for perjury/wasting police time, I'd remortgage my house in order to get some kind of justice/revenge. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the likes of Liam Allen chose to do the same in order to obtain a very public vindication of their innocence

Yep and then you'd get pilloried for that by certain self interest groups. Point in case the Eleanor de freitas (sp?) case. The accused male took out a private prosecution against her and she killed herself. He was absolutely torn apart on here even though he was clearly innocent. Most posters still didn't believe him, and the very few that thought he might be innocent stated he shouldn't have pursued it and it was his fault she died!

A grown woman has as much sexual agency as a man.

THIS. and

Yes, but as the majority of rapes and sexual assaults against women are committed by people the victim knows.... It's a total minefield, isn't it?

THIS.

So, effectively it seems this is a 'crime' for which many people are happy to see someone sent down, even if they've done everything possible to ensure they did nothing wrong.

If it's a case of one person's word against another, and that the only thing dividing sex from rape is the alleged victim's perception and/or recollection, then the law is basically criminalising people based upon baseless accusations.

Like others on here, I've had drunken sex; sometimes good, sometimes bad. In no instance was I a 'victim'. However, had I decided after the event that I regretted it sufficiently, I could have claimed assault, and the accused would have to somehow magically prove that I had explicitly consented and was sober enough to be capable to do so. Bonkers! That's thought-crime territory!

It's right that as a society, we're trying to address cultural inequities and structural unfairness, and it's right that we're trying hard to prosecute real crimes. However, moving the goalposts and lowering the threshold to redefine what counts as a crime and how we consider guilt is an affront to a civilised society.

I also think that OP's dilemma, as she expressed it, was less that she has a particular reason to doubt her friend and more that she is aware that false allegations are rare and that women are usually telling the truth when they complain of assault. One of the more toxic myths about sex after drinking is that women are too stupid/vicious/vulnerable to know the difference between regrettable sex, crap sex and a calculated assault - we do know the difference. The people who are so invested in the idea of a 'grey area' are rapists or rape enablers, as it suits them to have this widely-believed idea of women as silly bitches who tell lies and regret sex so much that they have to pretend it was non-consensual.

It's rare for a woman to make a false allegation out of malice or a desire to cause trouble, but it's not completely impossible. Human beings can be dishonest, spiteful and nasty.

Got it in one, Babycham1979! :-) and anyone doing a bit of research on my recommendations, my apologies, I meant PAFAA. Please people, learn a little before you are so sure that all men are rats or rapists in waiting. Of course, bad things happen and the full force of the law should be brought to bear when appropriate. but not every complainant is a victim and everyone falsely accused is the victim of a system stacked against them. Believe me, there are men languishing in jail because a jury was asked to guess who was lying and guessed wrongly - or acted on their prejudices. Who knows? No-one is allowed to ask a juror how they reached their decision.

It's not simply that women are too stupid to know the difference, ReanimatedSGB, of course they are not, but too many are vindictive and have a motive for their lie. Did you know for instance that a 'victim' can get financial compensation for a sexual assault/rape regardless of whether there is a charge or a conviction or even if the assailant is unidentified. all well, good and necessary for people who have genuinely been assaulted, bu an incentive to lie for some. People in the care professions, men and women are at grave risk of being falsely accused. Teenagers angry at their parents, teachers or the fact that they are in care lie, sometimes decades later. Children coached by angry parents lie and women who can only get legal aid for divorce if they cite DV or sexual misconduct lie. People assume that every report is genuine and that the police/CPS fail to prosecute only because there is not enough evidence. 'NO' evidence or 'NO crime' never enters into it. Historical accusations, not touched on here are another issue. There is no statute of limitations on sexual crime in the UK. Could anyone here say with certainty exactly where they were and what they were doing 30 or 40 years ago? Assuming being age appropriate. Cases come to court with a time span of 'assault/rape happened sometime in 19' or 'between 19 and 19'. How the hell do you defend yourself then?

Brilliant post @ReanimatedSGB.

Megs

But most of these scenarios aren’t relevant to the OP’s situation.

masterwu

You have no evidence that he was clearly innocent

"a victim can get financial compensation for a sexual assault/rape regardless of whether there is a charge or a conviction or even if the assailant is unidentified. all well, good and necessary for people who have genuinely been assaulted, bu an incentive to lie for some."

Can you explain under what scheme this is available, @Megs4x3?

Ok.i would have to ask yourself why you doubt your friend against a stranger is there something that makes you concerned about your friends behaviour and makes you believe he could be capable?

megs

I dont need to learn a little

But i really appreciated your post and the effort you went to

Megs, the director of public prosecutions addressed this myth a few years ago. Deliberate false allegations are a tiny, tiny minority of allegations made. (Cases of mistaken identity are a different matter.)

The Director of Public prosecutions has shown herself to be less than reliable on a number of occasions, and with regard to more issues than just this (Rochdale grooming, anyone?).

By its very nature, it's impossible to quantify the number of 'deliberate' false accusations', so I'd be interested to know what methodology she used for this.

I would like to challenge her to prove a negative (something that she seems keen to impose on alleged offenders), but I know she would be incapable of doing so.

Where's the methodology for these speculative claims about false allegations? I hear it referred to so frequently - along with the supposedly low conviction rate - but I'm yet to see anything that would stand up to proper statistical scrutiny (as opposed to politicised, polemical mis-reading).

You have no evidence that he was clearly innocent

She claimed to have been drugged and raped by him.

She was seen arm in arm with him buying sex toys the next day.

There were text messages and cctv which directly contradicted her account.

she was being prosecuted for PCJ.

I constantly read on mumsnet that prosecutions for rape are rare (In comparison to the number which allegedly occur) and because of this if it gets to court then it's likely to have occurred.

I also read a lot that false accusations are very rare.* So using the same logic, if this got to court does it not stand that she was perverting the course of justice? Or do the same standards not apply?

*They're not, it's just prosecuting them is rare.

@Babycham1979 so you reject statistics and want to replace them with your own opinion/feelings about how often false allegations are made? Ok...

y its very nature, it's impossible to quantify the number of 'deliberate' false accusations', so I'd be interested to know what methodology she used for this

Well, in an ideal world:
If it could be proven beyond reasonable doubt that someone did indeed make false accusation...?

Yes, there’s so much stigma surrounding this that it currently isn’t happening (in the U.K.!) But it’s not particularly difficult in theory...

Yes, it will always be impossible to have absolute certainty / be sure that every innocently accused victim gets justice (and thereby also ensure the accuracy of crime stats. They will never include all criminal acts... for imo obvious reasons.)

But that’s not because of the very nature of false allegations.
That’s because of the nature of the criminal justice systems in most developed countries (in dubio pro reo) and because of the nature of sexy assault and rape cases in general. (It’s very often a he said / she said. Whether it’s about the actual rape or a false accusation.)

*sexual assault.

Not sexy assault. Obviously.

I think it's fair to question the methodology behind the statistics, given that they aim to quantify the unquantifiable.

Freddie In the recent Liam Allen case it is a matter of record that the allegation made against him was false. In writing. By the alleged victim.

I'd like to know what others think should happen to the alleged victim in this case. Who still remains anonymous. When Liam has been through two years of hell (fortunately unlike the OP his friends never doubted him and had their support).

Assassinatedbeauty, no; I'm doing the very opposite. I'm asking for facts before making huge, sweeping assumptions, based upon my own prejudices.

I don't know about false claim figures, which is why I'm asking. I have an open mind about it, actually. However, I do know that the allegedly low conviction rate isn't borne out by facts when compared to comparably provable crimes. It's a hackneyed trope that people trot out when trying to push a political agenda.