DH was incorrectly told he was being charged for a crime.

[Amae]

Hi all,

looking for some advice:

DH was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder (was not involved at all), interviewed and released. A few days later he was called by a police officer who informed him that the CPS were charging him and the officer needed to hand-deliver a charge sheet for court.

DH and officer agreed a time and date for him to deliver the charge sheet but the officer never arrived. After numerous calls from my husband to try and contact him, he eventually answered and informed him he'd been 'mistakenly charged' and to completely disregard any previous communications.

My husband runs his own business and we have young children, for weeks we were under the impression he was being charged for a crime he did not commit- the amount of stress this caused for both of us was absolutely huge.

Worth mentioning that when he was arrested, this was after our family home had been dawn raided in the early hours.

DH keeps getting emails about making a claim about being 'mistreated by the police' so we are curious as to whether we have any grounds to persue this or is it a complete waste of time?

Thankyou for taking the time to read all of this, and advice is greatly appreciated.

Because he was going into the pub for a drink- he has lupus, he's not a leper and is entitled to live a normal life?

When my husband rang the officer to ask when he was turning up with the charge papers (they'd agreed between 4-6pm and this was 6.30) the convo went like this- DH 'hi mate, do you know what time you are going to be dropping the papers off because you said it would be by 6?' The officer: 'urm yeah.. about that- sorry mate, we've made a mistake, the charges have been dropped' DH 'so I'm not being charged with anything then?' Officer: 'no mate, we made a mistake I'm sorry about all of this'.

it was pretty much that word for word- I heard it for myself.

Did they take his clothes when they executed the warrant?

If there was a fight going on in a pub there’s no way most people would even enter.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, just the investigation was being dropped. Why would he say the charges are being dropped when he wasn’t even charged?
Do you live in England? Also, when they arrested your DH in the middle if the night what did the warrant say?
Your original post says DH was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder (was not involved at all), interviewed and released. A few days later he was called by a police officer who informed him that the CPS were charging him and the officer needed to hand-deliver a charge sheet for court.
DH and officer agreed a time and date for him to deliver the charge sheet but the officer never arrived. After numerous calls from my husband to try and contact him, he eventually answered and informed him he'd been 'mistakenly charged' and to completely disregard any previous communications.
My husband runs his own business and we have young children, for weeks we were under the impression he was being charged for a crime he did not commit- the amount of stress this caused for both of us was absolutely huge
and then you say he phoned the policeman at 6.30 because he hadn’t turned up by 6. So he hasn’t been waiting weeks has he? Your timelines are not consistent.

When my husband rang the officer to ask when he was turning up with the charge papers (they'd agreed between 4-6pm and this was 6.30) the convo went like this- DH 'hi mate, do you know what time you are going to be dropping the papers off because you said it would be by 6?' The officer: 'urm yeah.. about that- sorry mate, we've made a mistake, the charges have been dropped' DH 'so I'm not being charged with anything then?' Officer: 'no mate, we made a mistake I'm sorry about all of this

Also, the murders in Southport were in July and August

goodness me, I can't be bothered to explain some of your interrogations. He was told he was being charged, the police officer said he needed to hand deliver the charge papers to him, they arranged a date and time about two weeks after he was told he was being charged to drop the papers off - so for those 2 weeks, we were under the impression he was being charged.

This. But I’d feel mad.

yep they were but by the time my husband was told he was being charged, this was when those found guilty of violent disorder (in relation to the Southport riots) were being sentanced.

anything else you want to pick apart Colombo?

That sounds like a frightening experience for your ordinary citizen who just goes about their business without any bother with the police and therefore not particularly familiar with the processes of arrests and charges etc.

I am really not sure why some posters are being harsh to OP or trying to pick a part her posts. I can totally imagine if I or my partner or a family member got caught up in a situation like this, then I’d be panicking and wondering what the hell would be the outcome. Of course your mind would go to worst case scenarios (such as OP bringing children up alone). I know I would be imagining all sorts of things- whether they are likely or unlikely to happen.

Thanks I really appreciate your post.

I'm actually shocked at how vile some people can be on here, I was only asking for some legal advice, I didn't ask arm chair detectives with nothing better to do to tell me I'm lying or to scrutinise what I've said!

On posts like this you will always get people trying to trip the OP up or pick apart posts. It’s really weird and I don’t understand it.
If PPs have knowledge of police processes and justice systems etc then that is good for them but not everybody has insight into these things- especially your normal everyday people. Bottom line is, your husband was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and was being served charge papers so OF COURSE you’re gonna bloody panic and start wondering what’s going to happen long term. Any crime can end up with a prison sentence. ANY. People can accuse you of catastrophising or hyperbole but bloody hell surely that’s normal when you’re facing something you never think you would do!

Anyway, my advice is to just put it all behind you. It wasn’t handled well by the police but no point dragging it out and causing more upset to yourselves.

Crimes you haven't committed though with no evidence would not automatically make thoughts jump to husband in prison and single parenting which I think is why posters are asking why that was the assumption.

Anger at the situation is totally understandable

Speak for yourself? Everyone is different and people can and do have spiralling thoughts when faced with an unknown situation. Might be irrational but it happens ffs. If I had been served charge papers then I absolutely would be worrying about the worst case scenario, even knowing I was innocent.
Good for you that you would be able to hold yourself together in a situation like this, however, not everyone would have the same reaction and that’s the top and bottom of it 👍🏻

I love to solve puzzles, and when things don’t add up, it makes me more curious. Maybe I would make a good detective, after all, I’ve got the Mac to wear 😂. The thing is, your story is full of contradictions. The riots happened at the end of July / beginning of August and by early October, most of those arrested were sentenced.
As I mentioned in a post a moment ago, the incident happened around the same time as there were all the riots happening after the Southport murders and it just seemed at the time that they were keen to charge people with violent disorder and hand them a heavy sentence
You claim this happened during the riots, he was told 2 weeks after the arrest that he wasn’t going to be charged but also that it happened in winter hence the coat zipped up and the face mask. Can you not see that when someone contradicts themselves others might question it? As I mentioned earlier, if your DH has absolutely indisputable proof that he was not involved in any fight in any pub, then he’s got nothing to worry about. But this occurred at a time of great unrest in the country, so the police were acting more cautiously than normal. I notice you haven’t answered my and other’s question about why your house was raided in the middle of the night though. How did the police identify him when he had a face mask on?

You do realise that on an anonymous internet forum people have been known to make things up? Some of them are actually quite awful things that make people think ‘why would you make up something so terrible’. There was one example on here a couple of weeks ago involving a very sick child which turned out to be a complete fabrication. Yep, that’s very weird and I don’t understand it myself.

I'm not going to carry on the thread because I've had plenty of useful advice and I really appreciate those who took the time to answer kindly and with helpful suggestions. For those of you who were speculating about me lying, making things up and just being generally quite horrible- I do think it would be a great idea to get a hobby or something a bit more wholesome to fill your time over the weekend, saddos!

I believe you op. My son (although only 14 at the time) was charged with something and we never heard any more about it, to this day haven't been able to get any follow up information on what this means for him.

On another occasion he was accused of a serious crime he could not possibly have committed (he was somewhere else entirely at the time, mistaken identity on CCTV image), lot sof evidence to place him elsewhere but they just would not drop it, we had to jump through so many loops to prove the kid on CCTV couldn't be him, didnt even resemble him. I struggle to have any trust or respect for the police after seeing potentially life changing decisions made on such a whim, with no care or apology for the distress they caused.

This is a straight A student btw, not someone who's ever had any trouble at school or with the police before these two incidents.

Thankyou for your reply and I'm sorry you had to go through that, it must have been horrendous especially as a parent.

none of it made any sense to us at the time, he was about to go into the pub but saw it was kicking off so went off to carry on his shopping (this was in the town centre), he was later stopped and questioned by the police whilst in a shop and he said he was doing Christmas shopping- they took his details and said they'd be in contact, then we got raided about 6 weeks later. It was absolutely insane! Anyway, given the useful advice people have provided on here, we won't peruse anything now but it's just useful to know it wasn't only us who a similar thing has happened to.

I hope you and your son are all okay now xx

Yeah I do realise that, which is why I don’t get worked up about posts on here and take everything with a pinch of salt. I respond based on what I’m reading by the OP. If they end up completely fabricating a story, that’s entirely on them. It doesn’t affect my life. I might roll my eyes and think ‘how odd’ but then I carry on with my day. I certainly don’t go out of my way to pick apart what someone is saying on an internet forum when they also could be telling the absolute truth. It might make me look a fool by believing something in its entirety but it also doesn’t affect my life in any way shape or form should it turn out to be complete bullshit.

Why bother coming on mumsnet with the attitude that everyone could be lying about every single thing posted. If you don’t believe it, then don’t respond and read something else. And don’t get invested in threads from strangers because that’s also odd.

Isn’t that an over-reaction? He was never charged and often charges get dropped before court. He would be bailed out until his court date. He wasn’t guilty so he’s not going to get convicted, and will walk away from court.

I agree, it was an overreaction but we were worried and as I mentioned in another post, probably a bit naive. Ultimately, us overreacting is a null point hence why I posted this in legal advice- if I wanted people to pick apart our reaction to it, I would have posted this in AIBU.

Did you read the rest of my post which was pure unadulterated advice reassuring you that your fear he would have to close his business and you’d be raising your kids alone (you implied he would be in prison) isn’t going to happen ?

I agree this isn’t AIBU so perhaps don’t nitpick the advice you do get.

Your 'pure, unadulterated advice' was preceded by an unnecessary critical comment about our reaction, I'm not sure what you thought you'd gain by writing it, could have just left that bit out and given the advice 🙂.

@Amae You went into that amount of prep on the basis you, and he, knew he was innocent? How odd? That’s a gross interaction to a police error! If they did make an error as opposed to having insufficient evidence of course! I suspect the latter, hence dh thought he wasn’t completely innocent. I’d just leave it there and not poke the hornets nest.

We were dawn raided in a case of mistaken identity. Banged down the door and broke in at 5am when I was on my own with dd and ds who were babies. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Dh was away for work of course. They were looking for someone who had the same name as dh who lived at 11 name road and we lived at 11 name street. Just a complete coincidence.

never got an apology, never got any compensation for the door, never even got an admission they were wrong. I was just relieved to have nothing more to do with them so I didn’t pursue it. Made me think a lot worse of the police though!

@DogTiredAllTheTime That happened to a friend of mine too. I’m that case, the police didn’t even get the right town! They should have been beating the door down 25 miles away. Of course they don’t apologise!