To describe my brother's actions as a sexual assault

[Stillanothernamechange]

My brother lives with my family (me, DH, 2 small children). He is neurodivergent and sometimes finds life a challenge. But usually he is an extremely kind, selfless person.

Earlier this year we had an au pair who was romantically interested in him (at some point she drunkenly told him that she was falling in love with him). I made it pretty clear to him that it was not appropriate for him to be pursuing a romantic relationship with her; she's (early-mid-20s) over 10 years younger than him, the power imbalance obviously was huge, and frankly I didn't want to have to deal with the complications that could arise from a relationship turning sour between two people living in my house. They both told me they weren't interested in a relationship with each other (my brother was just coming out of a long and, in my opinion, horrible relationship).

They were often going out together or staying up late drinking together; I was happy for her that she had fun things to do but to be perfectly honest the late nights sometimes led to her being tired and grumpy when she was supposed to be working (and my brother's drinking has been a concern for a long time). What I didn't know was that when they were drunk they were - I guess the best term would be 'fooling around' (I have zero interest in learning the details; I know they weren't sleeping together). What I also didn't know was that at some point this did turn sour from the au pair's point of view, and that my brother didn't notice. (My best guess having spoken to her a bit is that she realised he also wasn't interested in a relationship with her, and given their continuing physical contact she felt a bit used and hurt - despite her saying the same about him. That's just my conjecture though.)

This all came to a head a month or so ago when they got home at 2am, my brother woke us up being loud and drunk, and the next morning we found out that one of his friends (I'm going to call him Jack) had slept on the au pair's floor. We had a serious conversation with my brother about his drinking, and spelled out that he had a choice to make between his current lifestyle and continuing to live in our home. AFTER having that conversation with him, the au pair (this is starting to feel a bit depersonalising; let's call her Sophie) said she needed to talk to us. She told us that the reason 'Jack' had slept on her floor is because he'd witnessed my brother's behaviour towards 'Sophie' and been horrified, and felt that she might need some security. Sophie told us that for some time she'd been avoiding my brother when he was drunk, because he was a bit handsy. She didn't tell us exactly what had been happening, and the conversation was clearly extremely difficult for her so I wasn't pressing her for details. The next day I spoke to Jack and he described what my brother had done as 'sort of tonguing her neck'. The important point here really is that an independent witness saw the behaviour, clearly understood that it wasn't consensual, and was appalled by it (Jack said many times that if he hadn't witnessed this himself he never would have believed my brother would have done something like this).

My husband and I were obviously completely horrified. This is a young woman we feel responsible for who didn't feel safe in her own living space because of predatory behaviour. My mum came down on the train and spent the evening talking to my brother, and he enrolled in an alcoholics programme. Sophie said she wasn't 'bothered' about it, but a week or so later she left giving us 3 days notice. There were, unrelated, issues with Sophie: we had noticed that things she said didn't always match up to her behaviour, and the day she gave us notice the manager of a local community centre had just contacted me and told me Sophie wasn't taking care of our toddler at all when they visited it together, to the point where he was at risk of seriously hurting himself (another parent on the school run has since told me he observed concerning behaviour by her around our children). But this is getting really long so I guess I'd better cut to my real issue, which is that I feel some of my family are massively minimising what my brother did. I spoke to my other brother about it recently and when I described it as sexual assault, he said "a lot of the rhetoric used regarding that incident has been completely over the top" and that Sophie "had given [my brother] reason on previous occasions to believe that she was consenting". I still can't believe that a member of my own family thinks like this about sexual assault - like, what the fuck is the relevance of her consenting on a previous occasion?

So: AIBU? Is this an extremely serious event which everyone in the family should be taking seriously? Or an understandable drunken mistake? For the record, the 'drunken octopus-hands' brother, as far as I know, is taking it seriously. It's the other one who doesn't seem to be.

Christ OP, what a mess. I can’t imagine how difficult this has been.

YANBU to insist on calling it what it is, and if your other brother can’t get their head around that then I’d be minimising contact with him.

I think the fact they both continued living with you after it all came to light speaks volumes. From your other brothers point of view you didn't consider it serious enough to tell your brother to leave.

It quite obviously isn't a drunken mistake if this was a regular occurrence though.
"Sophie told us that for some time she'd been avoiding my brother when he was drunk, because he was a bit handsy."

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 says that someone commits sexual assault if all of the following happens:

• They intentionally touch another person.
• The touching is sexual.
• The other person does not consent to the touching.
• They do not reasonably believe that the other person consents.
• The touching can be with any part of the body or with anything else.

Are you truly certain that they had not been fooling around previously? Would he randomly do this without prior things occurring? giving him the impression that it was ok between them?

What is odd is the friend slept in the room to protect the girl?

He felt your brother was a high threat to the girl?

Is your brother living with you because he can’t live independently?

They had been fooling around, OP said so. But presumably that was consensual and this was not. If she didn't want to be touched, it doesn't matter what they had done in the past.

Pair of pisstakers! No way should your au pair be on the piss with your brother! And vice versa! A lot more has gone on between them clearly! Both giving off signals so it’s very tricky to put this down as sexual assault when her reaction wasn’t the best to him not wanting a relationship.

For the record they'd both of been longggg gone from my house the second the nonsense started.

YANBU in how you've described his actions. However I think you need to separate your brother's behaviour out from any concerns you may have had about the standard of 'Sophie's' work. It also doesn't matter if they had 'fooled around' before (though I appreciate you were probably including this for context).

My question too because if not, and you need an au pair, he needs to live elsewhere.

YANBU to call it sexual assault. That is what it is.

The key thing, though, is that the person directly involved (ie Handsy Brother) understands what he's done wrong (which you say you think he does, so that's good).

Other Brother is definitely wrong to minimise this, but I would say that he actually just needs to stay out of it and keep his opinions to himself at this point. You are right, Other Brother is wrong, but I think the most important thing (at least on a practical level) is that Other Brother doesn't have the chance to confuse Handsy Brother on this issue.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with all this; what a difficult and messy situation.

Yes it was assault. Yes expect a claim for sexual harassment at work from the au pair because you failed to keep her safe in her workplace.

Yes, absolutely this.

OP, I feel for you. And no, of course you're not being unreasonable not to minimise this. Regardless of your au pair's lack of professionalism with your children, or her previous consent to sexual contact with your brother, that was sexual assault. Sophie might well have considering calling the police, and she would have been taken seriously if she had.

My godson is autistic, and I know his parents have always worried about him failing to fully understand consent, and that consenting on previous occasions doesn't mean this occasion was consented to etc etc, because he struggles with understanding ordinary social relations in general, can't easily read body language, nuance etc.

What a mess! I don't think it should be minimised but had she actually told him she didn't want anything to happen any more? Because from what you have written it seems more like she decided she didn't but just tried to avoid him (pretty difficult if you live in the same house) but then also still went out drinking with him. If he is ND he likely needs it spelling out to him that she isn't interested as he isn't going to pick up on the usual cues. Particularly if their relationship had previously been drunkenly fooling around.

I still think it was sexual assault but maybe your brother needs a few things spelling out to him to recognise if someone is not interested even if they have been previously. And in particular, if that is difficult for him, he needs to not be getting drunk so he doesn't recognise the signs.

You’ve allowed this to go on under your roof. You knew they were drinking and ‘fooling around’. Either the brother goes or you don’t have live in female help.

@Quitelikeit is correct. Your brother's actions meet the definition of sexual assault. I suspect there was an element of 'blurred lines' too, however that does not negate what's happened. Sophie sounds a bit 'messed up' tbh and not the type of person I'd want caring for my child. You're brother sounds like he has an alcohol problem.
Whilst I understand that you want to support your brother, I'd think carefully about having another au pair live in particularly if they're young and female. As an employer you have a duty to provide a safe working environment. Now you know of your brother's behaviour you must have surely identified a risk. Any future employee needs to be made aware of this and told that as charming/interesting/fun/attractive as your brother is, he has an alcohol problem, and advise how to handle this. This will likely reduce willing applicants.
The other option of course is your brother leaves whilst he has this problem.

This is really helpful, thank you. I've sent it to Other Brother and he appears to be climbing down somewhat from his position (he now says he "doesn't have enough information" to say whether or not it was assault, which is still ridiculous IMO because - having an actual witness there, how much more information do you need? but still better than his former position).

To answer some other questions:

• Handsy brother lives with us because we all bought the house together. So it isn't quite as simple as just kicking him out. I'm pretty sure that if I asked him to go he would go but ultimately what's been at the back of our minds is that this could mean selling our home.
• We are not going to have an au pair for the foreseeable future because to be honest, they have been pretty bloody hard work (yes I am separating Sophie's other work issues from the brother issue, but it has fed into some of the context. For further context, she's still contacting my brother asking for advice about looking for work etc. And during the period when she said she was avoiding him, she was still accepting all invitations to go out drinking with him.)
• Handsy brother should be capable of independent living. He has a good job, but is currently under a PIP (and was sacked from his last job after a PIP). I suspect this is because when he's hungover he's not very productive - but it could be that his neurodivergence means he just can't produce work as fast as a high-pressure firm requires him to. I suspect that if he was living by himself he would be completely overwhelmed with life admin, have no-one making him confront his drinking, and could easily sink into non-functioning rather than functioning alcoholism. At my prompting (and, in fact, relentless nagging until he sat down and booked it) he has recently started seeing a therapist.
• Other brother's attitude is relevant because it could influence my parents' attitude, and there has been a HUGE amount of pressure from my mum. Frequent mentioning of the fact he "can only fight on one front at once" (with reference to him trying to keep his job at the moment), requests that we don't talk to him about it and let her handle it (this might have been helpful when we were still at the 'fumingly angry' stage to be honest). Also relevant: Handsy Brother nearly killed himself when he was ten (pre-diagnosis) and he did feel suicidal (for the first time since then) for about 24hrs right after all this blew up. He has said recently that he finds it hard to cut down on drinking because it's the only thing in life he really looks forward to (obviously this is a big problem and one I am trying to find ways to address with him). I do feel that if there's one thing I should have done differently I should maybe have asked Handsy Brother to move out while Sophie was still living with us.

Thank you - it has been really bloody difficult!

Yes, exactly this. I believe the two things are true:

• Handsy Brother finds it very difficult to spot non-verbal cues (he never notices when a woman is flirting with him 😆)
• This was a sexual assault and being too neurodivergent to work out whether consent has been given is not a defence, any more than being too drunk to work it out is.

Therefore, Handsy Brother needs to be EXTREMELY careful in future, and he can't afford to be getting drunk.

Yes, Handsy Brother definitely has an alcohol problem. We have believed this for some time, and we addressed this before we even found out about the handsy problem. He is now tackling it.

Yes, Sophie is quite 'messed up'; the main reason we're taking a break from au pairs is that many of them seem to be running from something and it's been emotionally exhausting (the last one turned out to come from an utterly heartbreaking background and we really tried everything we could to support her but ultimately she was not a safe person to have around our children). That's not really relevant to my brother's behaviour towards her though!

I've said it before, but this behaviour was completely out of character for Handsy Brother. I've even been in touch with former au pairs who I know were good friends with him, who have confirmed that nothing like this has happened before.

I know my post won't be popular but if they were fooling around, going on the piss together and she still contacts him, I think you are being unfair to label your brother as a sex pest, it very much sounds like blurred lines between the two of them. I wouldn't trust the word of a lad caught in your au pair's room either.

Really you should have ended the contract with her when you first found out professional lines had been crossed.

I’m sorry but I think you will need to plan to sell up and get your brother living independently from your family.
It is hard enough to deal with alcoholic behaviour whilst your children are younger but as they get older they need to be safeguarded from their uncle. Your wider family have no say in the matter.

@Stillanothernamechange

sell the house and live separately to your brother

I didn't read all that op TL;DR, but this bit stands out to me

Earlier this year we had an au pair who was romantically interested in him (at some point she drunkenly told him that she was falling in love with him). I made it pretty clear to him that it was not appropriate for him to be pursuing a romantic relationship with her; she's (early-mid-20s) over 10 years younger than him, the power imbalance obviously was huge

If he's ND, I'd think the power balance was in her favour and I'd have told her to leave him the fuck alone or leave my house.