Conflicted - accused of a crime.

[MamaMiaoff]

My male friend has been accused of sexual assault a month ago and I am conflicted.

He met her off a dating app and they started to send dirty texts. They met for a walk, hit if off and decided to met at a house that evening. He says they got on really well. She was all over him within the hour. He said he calmed it down as although he thought he was in for a promise wanted to chat and relax.

He says an hour later she went to get a drink, stood up and felt odd. She then accused him of giving her drugs. He doesn’t do drugs. She called a friend and said he was making her uncomfortable. He said at that point he left as she was shouting at him not to forward the pictures he took that night. He says there was none. Police has his phone.

Over the next few days she sent him many messages. Accusing him of being a bad man, then prayers of saving his soul and saying she was glad she didn’t do anything more with him than kiss. Then next message she is reporting him to the police for being bad? His friends and me told him to ignore her, but save the messages as they were odd. His last message a few days later was please leave me alone.

That day she went to the police and reported that she blanked out for 20 minutes, he spiked her and thinks he did something to her as she was sore in her private areas a few days later.

My friend got arrested, suspended from his job whilst investigation is ongoing. He is destroyed. He has admitted he thought he was in for a sex, but says he wouldn't expect it if she changed her mind. I believe he would never force anyone to do anything. I have been in a relationship with him and he was very respectful. Not the greatest boyfriend, and has a string of failed relationships.

But - Why go through the invasive procedure of a rape kit if the girl was not sure or lying. They didn’t know each other, so it can’t be revenge.

I believe my friend. But small doubts as it’s a traumatic thing to be investigated for by the women and certainly very serious to be lying. Why out yourself through it?

How do I support? What do I do?

I know you want to support your friend, OP, but I think he's asking a great deal of you. From what you've said, he's had a string of relationships with damaged women who he's tried to save, but when it doesn't work out, he jumps ship and moves onto the next one. At the very least, he's consistently demonstrated poor judgement and a lack of ability to learn from his mistakes. I also think it's probably very important to him that others see him as a good person. Knowing what you know, do you 100% trust that he read the situation correctly?

Unfortunately, like a pp, I think that he's lining you up to be his perfect character witness. You're an ex of his who's still his friend (I'd be interested to know what happened to all the damaged women he failed to fix, btw) and who obviously has a high opinion of him - you'd be the ideal person to say "I know him, and he would never!" The thing is, you can't know that, not for sure. How he is with you won't be how he is with everyone. You can believe him and support him, but trying to work out the motivations of a woman who you haven't met and you've only heard about through your friend is completely pointless. Perhaps she's unwell, or malicious, or perhaps she's telling the truth, but I don't think your friend sounds like someone whose account of other people's actions is to be relied upon.

Men who are hoping for sex in these scenarios do not calm things down for a chat.

MamaMiaoff We spent few hours together and I asked him to not talk about it. Just a normal day. He apologised for the stress

He's using you. He's buttering you up to make a supportive statement in case it goes to trial.

Why do you want to spend so much time with an ex boyfriend who meets strangers for casual sex during lockdown?

Greenland is blunter than I was but basically, yes,what she said. You're tying yourself up in knots with "why would she lie?" when you only have one version of events, which has come from someone who is enormously invested in being seen as the good guy.

Why do you want to spend so much time with an ex boyfriend who meets strangers for casual sex during lockdown?

And who has repeatedly lied to you and deceived you by breaking your bubble and putting your health/life at risk during lockdown.

Do you know any of the women in the string of failed relationships - I would be interested to hear their take on this guy.

You have asked about 7 times on this thread repeatedly “why would someone put themselves through this” - you seem stuck on that Q.

The answers are obvious:

She is telling the truth
Or
She is a vexatious unstable woman

You don’t seem to be able to hold both possibilities in your mind - why is that? If it’s so intolerable to you that he could be guilty then you need to start protecting yourself emotionally because statistically and given your description of his behaviours towards women it’s hugely likely that she is telling the truth.

I don’t see that there can be a grey area which YOU are imagining (changing minds) - because there is an accusation of drugs being involved. Why have you concocted this scenario - because he hasn’t alluded to it?

Why do you want to spend so much time with an ex boyfriend who meets strangers for casual sex during lockdown?And who has repeatedly lied to you and deceived you by breaking your bubble and putting your health/life at risk during lockdown

To be fair I was also wondering this. Are you still hung up on him op? Do you still have a thing for him?

It’s odd that this is an ex, he’s lied to you and deceived you and you know this, but it seems even with this, you’re still hanging on in there. Which Is fair enough, but he doesn’t seem to treat you well?

I did ask way back.. if the OP still harboured feelings for him too

Not sure why any of you are questioning OP's friendship, it has no relation to the question whatsoever.

OP, Innocent until proven guilty, I think you owe it to the person you've known longer to give him the benefit of the doubt. A lot of armchair detectives are ready to lynch when an investigation is ongoing, if you push away and it turns out she was lying as she was in a relationship, or regretted it, or wanted attention, then you would be supremely upset to lose a friend over nothing.
And if he's guilty, drop him as fast as possible.

Not sure why any of you are questioning OP's friendship, it has no relation to the question whatsoever.

I believe it matters greatly ...

It helps understand the dynamic of the original post the explains any loyalty or not to the man concerned ... 🌺

when i was a student in the 80's I shared a flat with a girl who had been raped twice. She said that her brothers beat up both of her rapists (she left them to mete out justice rather than involve the police).

At our graduation dinner her brothers were there and somehow we got to talking about a sexual assault and I kept looking at friend to check she was okay as I thought the conversation would be triggering. I suggested we change the subject and one of her brothers asked why. I said 'you know why' and looked at friend and they really didn't get what i was saying. Friends brother looked at her and asked her outright "has something happened to you you haven't told me about?" She replied "no, I don't know what she's [me] on about"

Now I don't know if she was raped but the bit about her brothers was a lie (i.e. she didn't tell them) or not, but there are people who lie about serious stuff, or at least embellish the facts. Unfortunately she did lie a lot about various things so I'll never be sure what the story was there.

I don't see the relevance really of all these "I knew a woman who lied about being raped" stories. The fact that some women may lie/exaggerate about this sort of thing means absolutely nothing in relation to the woman in the OP. The point is, the OP doesn't know her and wasn't there to see what happened, so it's useless for her to speculate. I understand that she wants to make sense of it in the context of whether her friend assaulted someone or not, but from what she herself has said about him he doesn't sound like he's very good at relationships and thinking about other people's needs/wants. All she can really do is decide whether she believes his version of what happened and act accordingly.

Not sure why any of you are questioning OP's friendship, it has no relation to the question whatsoever

It matters a lot, becayse it will sway her opinion and diminish her ability to see through what he’s telling her.

The idea that false accusations 'hardly ever happen' seems to make sense on face value, but then how do you prove a false accusation? Its just as hard ( if not harder) than proving a rape or sexual assault as you also have to prove the woman (or man) was actively lying rather than just mistaken. I suspect false accusations make up a much bigger % of the 'unproven rape' stats than we are led to believe.

I have worked in a male dominated environment for 20+ years and in that time have seen 4 different men falsely accused of rape or sexual assault. (2 of them by the same girl, who was subsequently prosecuted for her lies).

If you think it doesn't happen because 'why would someone put themselves through that', well people don't always act in a rational manner, particularly when strong emotions are present.

Thanks for you comments. I Have feelings for him as a friend - no romantic interest. Regardless of past relationships we maintained a good friendship. He treated me well as a boyfriend, we just had different values in a relationship, distance, and realised we were better as friends. Which we have done for over a year. Both dated others and no jealousy. My loyalty is as a friend. Same as if a female tried had been accused.

Yes I am hurt he broke our bubble and he knows that. But based on what’s happened, I need to forgive him and I don’t think he will again. Told him if he is going to do that, we will meet outside instead.

You still haven't really answered the points about whether all the other women he dated (and then abandoned when he couldn't fix them) are still friends with him, or whether you think his poor judgement makes him a reliable person when it comes to maintaining good boundaries.

TheImber 4 false accusations (and you know 100% that they were false how?) in 20+ years hardly makes a case for saying that it's a common occurrence. How many women do you think will have been raped in that time and their attackers never brought to justice? Why would you even want people to believe that women lie about this sort of thing frequently - do you think women somehow have it too easy with being believed at the moment and need to be doubted even more than they already are?

I know someone who was accused of rape for not having sex with his ex-girlfriend.

All it took was her word, he was arrested, strip searched, photographed, interviewed, phone taken away, and had to wait almost a year until the CPS eventually said no further action.

Just how men can do evil things, women can do evil things too. Its not really surprising.

You know your friend, so can probably make a reasonable guess who is lying.

Jimmyjabs

Without going into specific details, of the 4 men, 2 were in the same incident and the woman admitted she made the whole thing up and was prosecuted. The other 2 were 2 x separate incidents where the women made some pretty sketchy allegations that weren't substantiated in any way by the facts and both had strong reason to lie (they were both cheating when it happened and were found out, then cue allegation) neither were believed by the police or by anyone who was present on the evenings in question, including their female friends.

The point I was making was in terms of ratio. In 20+ years I've seen 1 man accused of rape who definitely did it and was prosecuted, and 4 men falsely accused.

@JimmyJabs I don’t think it makes a difference on his friendship with ex’s. As fair as I know, yes still on friendly terms with some. But like majority of ex’s no contact.

I am not friends with many of my ex’s except him. Friendly terms with some. But not doing friend activities. I don’t think this matters as no others have accused him.

@JimmyJabs

You still haven't really answered the points about whether all the other women he dated (and then abandoned when he couldn't fix them) are still friends with him, or whether you think his poor judgement makes him a reliable person when it comes to maintaining good boundaries.

TheImber 4 false accusations (and you know 100% that they were false how?) in 20+ years hardly makes a case for saying that it's a common occurrence. How many women do you think will have been raped in that time and their attackers never brought to justice? Why would you even want people to believe that women lie about this sort of thing frequently - do you think women somehow have it too easy with being believed at the moment and need to be doubted even more than they already are?

Well if we're talking anecdata in my 30+ years I only know one man that was possibly wrongly accused whereas just I personally have been seriously sexually assaulted 5 times and raped once. Add in my friends and there's 7 other women that have been raped.

Would you accept that as proof of anything?Obviously not.

Ironically the stats do back me up, but that's another story.

Damn quoted the wrong thing somehow.

That was aimed at @TheImber

Yes nobody is denying that men can do shitty things, its just that women can also do shitty things.

An uncomfortable fact a lot on here don't like to acknowledge.

Some of the statements in this thread prove my point.

'He's lying' - without any knowledge of specific details.

'On balance I'd believe her' - even after OP described in detail what an obvoiusly unstable person she is and personally vouches for the man

'False accusations are vanishingly rare' - simply not true.

Yeah, sorry, I don't think I'm going to accept that your anecdotes overturn the stats about false accusations. Let's not forget to factor in how many women don't even report their assaults because they assume nobody will believe them - in part because of people like you who seem determined to create some conspiracy about evil, lying women trying to ruin men's lives for no reason.

Fuck me, mumsnet at its finest once again. No such thing as a fair trial and jury in mn land is there? Just take women 100% at face value and throw away the key on any man the moment a woman says a word against them.

Yes its relevant that other posters have personally known people involved in falde rape claims. Thats very relevant on a thread full of people declaring he is a liar and guilty simply because a woman said so.

Do you think we should trust you and your anecdata or the director of the DPP?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/13/false-allegations-rape-domestic-violence-rare

*false.

Also being arrested and going to court also dont make you guilty.