Does anyone know much about the rape process?

[HeartHotWaterBottle]

I can't sleep and am in a state of terror about all this. Basically I had an incident last year where I was chatting to a married man (I am single) and he followed me home and raped/assaulted me.

I didn't report it but tried to pretend it was a one night stand. Eventually I got really angry and asked the police if I would be out of order to warn the place where he was staying. I wasn't expecting them to insist on taking me to the police station and after that do a video interview. There wasn't enough to go on so it wasn't going to go further. However he came back for me this year late at night (I wasn't there, fortunately) and so the case is reopened.

I googled an old rape thread on here and am now absolutely petrified.

I'm starting to want it to not progress it and I have told the police that my main goal is that I don't want him anywhere near my old house (I left after that, it really destroyed my world) but they can actually arrest you for that? And if it goes to trial they will pull you to pieces?

I guess the main features with this are that:

• I was drunk
• I wasn't wearing anything provocative
• No forensics
• I tried to pretend it was a one night thing at first, it took me a few days to start to try to talk to friends
• There weren't any witnesses/CCTV because of the time lapse
• I went through MH problems with bereavement
• I'm having counselling via a rape centre
• He doesn't have a record
• He is married with kids, weirdly enough I trusted him because of that, he was talking about his wife's PND so we ended up talking for ages. I wasn't expecting him to follow me home.

I am so, so scared now and wish I had never agreed to go down the police station

I don't understand why the police are saying to the OP that they need to check what she has said is not "malicious slander" when they are the ones who persuaded her to continue with her complaint in the first place.

I also don't believe that most women and girls who complain of sexual violence are lying but that is for another thread. I believe you OP

Please do keep posting if and when you feel for as long as you wish, the support is here for you if you want it or need to talk or anything

where has this idea of you being prosecuted come from

The idea of women being prosecuted for bringing rape charges which they later retract or are dropped due to lack of evidence is a favourite trope of MRAs who believe that all women lie about rape, and that any woman who accuses a man of rape and that man isn't then convicted should then be prosecuted... or bullshit to that effect.

Because all women who report rape are liars, aren't they?

Akina it's from the previous thread that I referenced before, I found that terrifying. I stayed up in a coffee and panic haze all weekend. It might have been about 20 fresh cafetiere coffees over 3 days wired

I still remember reading Germaine Greer as a teenager and I swear she did a quote from a song, which I cannot find anywhere else:

Last thing you've gotta do
Is talk her into loving you
No need to

She knows when the time is right
Comes to you without a fight
She wants to

I guess because I am questioning everything at the moment that came back to me. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it up. But it seems to me to be a nice way of expressing relationships, nothing forceful.

Honestly if they start to think I am 'malicious' just because that man is married and has kids and hence shouldn't be prosecuted I will take that so badly.

He was TELLING me about his wife and kids so I thought he was safe. The policewoman said 'oh my love, you didn't think he was safe because he was married, did you?' It's not that insane, surely?

People who get prosecuted for wasting police time aren't those who police cant get enough evidence for a conviction they're people who lie about a crime having happened.

Whether hes married/single is dad of the year or a total b has no bearing on police action

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get the idea out your head that youll be prosecuted. You won't!

WTF - this is a HORRENDOUS rape myth

Its a sad fact but police officers probably see more made up rape allegations than true ones. I know that in the past year or so numerous have been reported when ive been working of those only a handful were genuine.

Mumsnet rape busting myths are here.

I believe you OP.

OP have a look at this article .

There is a link to guidance for prosecution for perverting the course of justice by false allegation or false retraction.

You have not made a false allegation. It certainly can't be proved that you did.

I assume you don't want to retract but that you are understandably apprehensive about the court process.

I hope your Mum has given a statement and been asked to identify the rapist?

There is a handbook about the court process on the Rights of Women website.

That's not a made up myth thats the truth in my experience. At no time has anyone said they don't believe the OP. Not once

In actual fact she and I have spoken via pms regarding her case.

No hesitation in my or anyone elses mind shes 100% genuine and I think youll find ive emphasised on several occasions on here theres no way shell be prosecuted

The fact of a police officer going onto an internet forum where a woman is talking about her experience with the process, and probably others who are thinking about reporting etc are reading, and say "most women who report rape are liars", is a very negative message.

A message that the Police themselves and the public prosecutions service are working hard to dispel, given that statistically it is completely false.

However as long as we have people popping in and casually saying "well I'm a cop and me and my cop mates all know for a fact that women constantly lie through their teeth about being raped", we are still going to be in a position where victims are afraid of coming forward and people with a vested interest in victims not coming forward have great arguments to support their views.

Sad fact but there we are. These things matter, and impact on the lives of victims, and support victim blaming in the press, and the arguments of those who want victims to be publicly named etc etc.

Shows up more about the attitude of police than anything to do with victims IMO.

Sapphire unit in the Met turned away some of John Warboys victims on the basis that they didn't believe them. Police officers will have been saying "more women making it all up", and happily confirming all their biases. Fact was though, that they were telling the truth.

That has happened a lot historically and has not magically stopped in the last few years.

Look at the different no-crime stats for rape around the country, for instance. It is not a fact that women in one part of the UK are all liars compared to another part. The difference is because of different attitudes in the different forces as to whether they take the crimes seriously and believe victims, or if they don't.

OP I hope you are OK.

I wasn't sure whether to post the above due to your situation - on the one hand I don't want to scare you but on the other hand I don't feel that rape myths of that magnitude should be left without strong challenge especially on FWR and especially on a thread like yours where the myths might have an impact on lurkers.

The police are not going to do you for anything. As another person who went through the process said, the "malicious" comment was almost certainly a throw-away comment from a poorly trained pillock.

Thing is, I'm not saying it was rape. I tend to think of rape as being more black and white when it comes to myself, however if something like this happened to one of my female friends I would go batshit crazy.

I don't think there's any way to tolerate grubby little men's forcefulness where it might damage your reproductive organs and leave you emotionally damaged but at the same time rape is such a huge accusation.

I was surprised when Arkina said that there are a lot of false accusations.

No news here from me really, this will take a long time, police want to meet with me to discuss it. I would go utterly crazy if they try to accuse me of maliciousness though. They said they were trying to 'protect' me so I think they think the case would go badly if it went to court.

Oh OP

You didn't consent to the sex, so it was rape. It is that black and white.

Doctrine I wish it were that straight forward thinking-wise - unfortunately it's not, I still can't process it.

I told him I was grieving and I was actually quite concerned when he spoke about problems with his wife having depression and I was with him for ages chatting about it. One of my friends had PND and I'm quite sensitive to that because I think of her (I love her to bits) and was actually quite concerned about his wife. Sounds daft now.

But thank you for your kind words.

Testing

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was straightforward for you. I know it's anything but.

and for you.