DS has been falsely accused of assaulting a woman at Uni - what can we do?

[RhythmNBooze]

My head is all over the place and I don’t know where to even start with this. Probably going to be a long post as I want to get all the details down.

Got a phone call from 19 year old ds yesterday asking if he can come home for the weekend. He is in his 1st year at Uni. He said he’s been to see the welfare officer who has suggested it would be a good idea and said he would tell us why when he gets here. Dh picked him up from the station at 9pm so we’d spent the afternoon and evening wondering what the hell was going on. All sorts going through our minds – he’s got a girl pregnant, he’s ill, he’s gay etc.

Upshot of it is the following. He got a call from the welfare officer at Uni telling him to go to the office as the Police were there and wanted to talk to him. When he got there 2 police officers interviewed him (he thinks under caution) and he was video recorded. He was on his own. Wasn’t told he could have someone with him. He has been accused by a girl he had been seeing last term of assaulting her by pushing her. He denies it and says he wasn’t even at the place she says it happened. They told him to stay away from her and that if she reports anything else he could be arrested.
She has also asked the college to move him from his accommodation as his room is opposite his and she can see him. This is not true and he does not overlook her room.

Background to all this is that he started seeing her during freshers week. He thought they were ‘exclusive’ but she was getting off with other people when she knew he was there, usually at clubs. He says he confronted her about it a couple of times and admits he did shout at her. By the time the Xmas holidays came round he believed they were not together while he was upset he was coming to terms with it.
Last week he says he was walking back to his halls from a club with his mates and she was walking in front of him snogging another student. He admits he saw red as he thought she was doing it deliberately to wind him up and so he confronted her and shouted at her. Apparently he said some nasty things to her but he didn’t say what. The guy she was with pushed him away but he says he didn’t touch the girl. This week her friends have been saying to him that he has treated this girl really badly. He then gets the call about the police.

Of course I only have ds’ side of the story but he says he has tried to tell us everything in an unbiased way as possible and whilst I understand there are 2 sides to every story I believe ds when he says he has not physically assaulted this girl. He says he can prove he didn’t do what she has accused him of as he has witnesses to say he wasn’t with her and there are cctv cameras where she says the assault took place. He does admit to verbally abusing her at other times. We have told him that when he goes back he needs to completely blank this girl and not engage with her in any way. When he spoke to the welfare officer about it afterwards she advised the same.

My question is what else, if anything, can/should he do now about the fact she has falsely accused him of something. Should we do anything? Should he have been allowed to have the welfare officer with him when he was questioned? He is already upset that his experience of Uni has been tainted by this girl’s behaviour in the first term. I don’t want his whole Uni experience being affected by it. Can we put something in place that stops her from going near him?

Any advice gratefully received.

Stop minimizing his behaviour now

This. I understand how hard it must be to learn you have a son who is abusive, threatening and agressive towards women, and I would assume alcohol was involved here, but you must put a stop to this and not minimise, not blame the woman, because he will simply continue to do it throughout his adult life and god help any woman who becomes involved with him or kids he may have.

Protecting him in this instance is not minimising and blaming the female. It's making sure he fully understands how unacceptable his behaviour is and never ever repeats it so he can develop adult relationships that are not based in fear and bullying.

I know!

She went out with your ds a few times, met someone she preferred. It happens. She didn't want to make him jealous. Only he is responsible for his feelings and actions.

icannotremember I was so stunned by that comment I could't even respond! WTF indeed.

Yes not good, but as a female I know how manipulative we can be

Said no woman ever.

Thank you all, you've given me alot to think about. I have daughters too and I need to think about how I would react if something like this happens to them and what I would be advising them to do.

I will definitely be having words with him about his behaviour. I know it sounds like I'm minimising what happened but it's all so out of character. I've never seen him be aggressive with anyone, verbally or otherwise. However, I do accept that his behaviour must have come across as threatening and whatever she did afterwards he must accept responsibiltiy for this.

Just to be clear about the accommodation, they are not in the same block but they are on the same campus. Even so I won't be expecting him to move out.

He's young, and things have probably spun out of control way faster than he imagined. I do get that, and he's your little boy, in your eyes, so you'll want to protect him. But he is a man, and both you and he need to realise that.

You will be the best mother in the world, right now, if you help him to face the reality of the situation, and to see how much worse it could be if it had gone just one step further. He needs to be grateful that he can come home to his mum.

So, tell him that he's been foolish, that he can turn this around, but the way to do it is not by blaming the girl. Tell him that if he hadn't been so stupid, she wouldn't be able to accuse him of anything. Be glad that there is CCTV footage that will back him up, and be glad that if he stays away from her, this will be next month's old news.

Tell him to stay away from her. Even if that means that he misses out on a few good nights out. Accept a room change if necessary. Get some distance, clear the air. Move on, learn from it.

Don't minimise this for him, help him to learn from it.

I would honestly advise your son to move universities or at the very least halls. And tell everyone why - if he hasn't done what she has accused him of he shouldn't be embarrassed, she should. Regardless of the circumstances she sounds like a piece of work. Yes he shouldn't have verbally abused her, but he thought they were dating exclusively and it sounds like she was trying to provoke a reaction. Reporting this sort of thing does nothing for real victims of domestic violence. These sorts of accusations are life ruining and if your son is telling the truth she will most likely provoke him again.

He shouldn't have been formally interviewed without legal rep.

Has the chap she was with given evidence against him (ie said that he pushed her?).

Are the police taking any further action? Where has it been left? Your son needs a really good solicitor before he goes into any further interview. Do some research don't just accept the duty solicitor. You may have to pay. And if the cctv shows that he didn't assault her he should push for her to be prosecuted.

I have three boys (and a daughter) and I am teaching my sons to be very careful in their relationships (rightly) as the consequence of a false accusation is life changing.

Finally, try and get your son to go on an anger management course - he needs to try and learn something from this.

Also, it's not illegal to be rude to someone. But it is illegal to be threatening. So he needs to have a long hard think about what he said. It doesn't sound like the police were interviewing him about the previous verbal assault though - just the apparently fabricated physical assault.

"he’s got a girl pregnant, he’s ill, he’s gay etc."

Yes, all three absolutely terrible scenarios....

I have daughters too and I need to think about how I would react if something like this happens to them and what I would be advising them to do

I think you already know her version of this will be very different to his and paint your son in a much worse light than he is willing to paint himself.

I don't know why you won't expect him to move, it would be my first demand, because quite simply I would wish him to stay away from her and not to cross paths constantly, to protect both of them, and I would be thinking about how she will feel having to see her abuser.

I would also assume she is telling her parents. And they will get involved if he isn't moved. I know I would if I was her mother and some lad had been verbally abusive and threatening towards my daughter. I'd want him out. And I'd make my feelings clear to the uni as this is a safe guarding issue for this female.

I know it sounds like I'm minimising what happened but it's all so out of character. I've never seen him be aggressive with anyone, verbally or otherwise.

He admits he saw red as he thought she was doing it deliberately to wind him up and so he confronted her and shouted at her. Apparently he said some nasty things to her but he didn’t say what.
He does admit to verbally abusing her at other times.

So in reality it is not out of character at all, you just haven't seen him behave like this personally.

Stop minimising his bad behaviour and ask yourself how you would feel if a man did this to your daughters?

So he was seeing a girl, she messed him around with other boys, he was with his friends and saw her kissing another boy (after he told you that he thought they weren't together anymore anyway), and he thought it would be a good idea to show off in front of his new mates by mouthing off at and (possibly) pushing this girl.

He has admitted that he has verbally abused her before that also and you still think that there is another side to the story and she is making it all up?

If the op's son is being honest in what hes saying he reacted with emotion and shouted at a girl who he liked that treat him like shit. If it was the other way round, girl shouting at guy, no one would be telling the parent they are minimising behaviour or to help control child's emotion.
As for suggestion of restraining order, yes it would be perfectly acceptable to look into this if the op's son is again telling the truth because this would mean that this girl has reported him to the police for physical assault that never happened. That could destroy his whole life.
we don't know the other half of this story but if we assume he is being 100% honest then he needs to learn from it and not assume exclusivity and not get too emotionally detached. Not sure he needs referred straight to a counsellor or anger management just a good chat with family and friends about new relationships and how not everyone in the world has the same outlook and expectation when they sleep with another person.

He wouldn't have been interviewed under caution. That would have to take place in a police station not at the uni, and recorded properly by the police's equipment.
Sounds like it was an informal chat but the welfare officer should be able to clarify that.
If they were taking it too seriously they'd have had him down to the local police station and done it formally.

Fair enough if the CCTV proves that he hasn't pushed her, but until you know that for definite I would be taking what he says with a pinch of salt, and as for his, I have witnesses to back up that I didn't push her, the boy she was with could also back her up and say that he did.

No expert, but I would get him to write down his version of what happened that night now - dates, times, his witnesses names - keep it clear in his mind should he need to go over events again.

And get him to write down what happened during the police interview - what they said to him, what he said to them. I would personally also wonder whether it's worth getting him to contact the police and confirming whether the interview was under caution, but that may be a step too far.

He admits he saw red as he thought she was doing it deliberately to wind him up and so he confronted her and shouted at her. Apparently he said some nasty things to her but he didn’t say what. He does admit to verbally abusing her at other times*

And there will be witnesses to this, and as a mother of a daughter, as you are op, we both know this is what we would use to force the uni to move your son, if not suspend or expel him, which is what we would go for.

Personally if this had been done to my daughter because she didn't want to be some lads girlfriend and he was trying to force her to not go near other lads, I would be down the uni personally and I wouldn't stop until he was gone and they could guarantee by daughters safety.

We all have a right to chose our partners and to not be abused by others. And the uni has a duty to safe guard her.

ivegonegreyfindingausername What's that Margaret Atwood quote? 'Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.' (something like that). That's why it's treated differently.

It'd be disingenuous to suggest girls don't exist who will wind up men and make them jealous because of the feeling of power it gives them - but ultimately that doesn't physically hurt those men and it's not illegal as far as I'm aware.

Also being 'falsely accused' of things rarely does destroy men's whole lives, whereas actually being assaulted by men destroys countless women's lives.

If a girl approached her ex very short term, boyfriend and started shouting abuse and insults into his face, and the mum came on here trying to excuse it. Well yes, people would be telling her that her daughter was abusive and should have anger management.

Yes not good, but as a female I know how manipulative we can be

surely you mean that as a person, you know how manipulative you can be. Which has no bearing on the situation at hand.
He needs to take responsibility for staying away from her.

I really feel for you - My ds would assume, had he started seeing a girl that they were "exclusive" and would be hurt if she then started "getting off" with other people in front of him - I am certainly not condoning your son shouting at the girl, which he has admitted to (and I would be exactly the same with mine) but her behaviour certainly leaves a lot to be desired - it does sound like she was enjoying deliberately winding him up - snogging different people in front of him when she knows he is there, she knew exactly what she was doing - I would certainly make sure the Uni know his side of the story (again, there is no excuse for verbally abusing someone) She has obviously been "playing games" and I don't think he should be taking all the blame - I think they have both been at fault and it would be a shame if it effects his future at Uni. It's best if they can avoid each other in future, he needs to learn to control his temper and she needs to learn to have more respect for other people's feelings.

No, as a woman, I agree.
We can be manipulative and quite often know exactly what we are doing. I know this app likes to pretend we are all a sisterhood in the fight against men yada yada but I've seen it countless times.

Not saying that's the case here, just agreeing with pp, women can -gulp- lie and exaggerate.

I would certainly make sure the Uni know his side of the story

What's that then, that she made him do it?

You should be ashamed of yourself. Fucking sick of people justifying abuse of women in this way, his side of the story? She kissed other boys and he thought she was doing it to make him jealous? Do you know how puerile that sounds?

Just a thought - if he is adamant that the CCTV will prove his innocence, he must push for it to be looked at asap. It is often wiped fairly quickly, as I discovered to my cost when trying to prove that I had been assaulted at a cashpoint.

I'd tell him that he needs to cooperate fully with the police and be open with them, but also get in a meeting with a good lawyer to get some advice.