No Further Action for College Student Accused of Rape

Our client had been at his family home with his parents and sister, his girlfriend came to the home as she usually would and they would spend time together with his family, and also alone in his bedroom watching films and TV. Whilst in the bedroom it was out client's case that they had consensual sexual activity. 

The complainant left our client's home at her usual time of 10pm, she was picked up by her mother and returned to her family home. 

The relationship continued as normal for a further 6 months, regular contact, seeing each other socially and at each others homes and continuing to have sexual intercourse. However, our client for personal reasons decided to separate from the complainant, he finished their relationship via text message and although he was upset and appreciated that she would be, he did not expect that the consequence of his decision to end the relationship would result in him being arrested at this home address several weeks later. 

During the arrest our client was handcuffed, his phone was seized and he was taken to his local police station to be interviewed under caution. Before the interview he was taken through the procedure of providing his fingerprints and DNA, and also endured a 3 hours wait in a police cell. When the interview took place he was represented by the duty solicitor and advised to provide no comment answers to the questions asked of him. 

Following interview he was released subject to police bail conditions not to contact the complainant or any potential prosecution witnesses, which included her mother and some mutual college friends. 

He remained under police investigation for several months, before he instructed Eventum Legal. 

We were contacted initially by out client's parents, who were facing a mix of emotions from upset and worry through to anger and frustration. They told us how the duty solicitor hadn't been in contact with them since the interview, and the advice received after interview, and prior to our client's release from custody was that he would just have to wait for the police to complete their investigation.  Understandably, this is something nobody wants to do when they are falsely accused of a serious sexual offence. 

We arranged a meeting with our client and his parents, we spent time going through his personal circumstances and background to his relationship with the complainant. We discussed the affects this was having on his education at college, his mental health and physical health. Our client had become withdrawn, was suspended from attending college and had lost a dramatic amount of weight due to the stress and worry. 

At the conclusion of our meeting we proposed a plan of action to defend our client's case and to improve his current position. This meant taking a robust and pro-active approach pre-charge to enable him to move on with his life as soon as possible. 

Firstly, in any case our priority is to improve our client’s position as soon as possible, whilst this may not necessarily mean that the investigation ends it can involve varying or removing bail conditions enabling their return to work or college and carrying on with everyday tasks as normally as possible. Our involvement often gives our client and their family peace of mind and security, knowing that they have someone fighting their corner, obtaining updates and carefully putting forwards their case. This is important to us especially when we are representing children. 

1. Getting our Client back to College: we liaised with the police and the college to put a suitable plan in place to ensure our client's education was not affected by the investigation. 

2. Addressing the no comment interview: it was our view that our client should have provided an account and put forward his defence during the interview. We would therefore be required to put forward an account and denial as soon as possible. 

3. Defence witness evidence: Surprisingly the police had not contacted the parents of our client, despite them being the adults in the home on the night of the alleged offence. They were of course vital witnesses to the demeanour of the complainant throughout the evening, and of course their son.  There were also college friends who would be witness to the relationship between the alleged rape and the allegation being made. 

4. Character Evidence: Our client was of good character, he had never been in trouble at all both with the police or at school. We managed to obtain excellent character evidence statements from various people, including his teachers. 

5. Mobile phone evidence: We were aware that the complaint was made after our client had ended the relationship. We were also aware that since the alleged incident there had been months whereby the relationship was normal and sexual intercourse had continued. Ensuring this information was given to the police was crucial so that they could locate relevant text messages for the defence during the forensic examination of our client's phone. 

6. Preventing any further arrests: The consequences of an arrest are devastating, regardless of the outcome of the police investigation a person’s record is no longer clean. For children this can impact their future employment opportunities, ability to travel and obtain a visa, rent a property and also prevent them from following the educational path they wish to. 

Guidance issued to police officers is that youth suspects should not be arrested only where it is absolutely necessary. The aim of this guidance is to prevent the criminalisation of youths however, sadly this doesn’t appear to be considered, and we still experience heavy handed police officers using scare tactics when investigating youths. We ensure that our client was not arrested again, and an agreement was made that any future interviews would be held on a voluntary basis. We are now working with out client to have his arrest record removed, so that his clean record is restored. 

If you, a family member or friend is being falsely accused of a sexual offence then contact our lawyers for a free and confidential initial consultation. We will put together a pro-active plan of action for you, with the aim to achieving the best possible outcome. 

False allegations are made for various reasons, to bolster family court proceedings, for revenge and sadly for attention. Working with lawyers who witness who understand this and witness this behaviour from complainants first hand is important to enable you to get your case heard.