Forever accused

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7265307.stm

By Andrea Rose
Producer, Cry Rape, 1Xtra


False allegations of rape may make for gripping headlines in the newspapers,
but they can also ruin the lives of those men who've been accused despite
being innocent.

At the age of 19, Ben Guerin had his life ripped apart by one allegation.

Three years after he'd had a sexual encounter with a girl from school he was
arrested for assault, rape and paedophilia.

The girl claimed they had met at a party when she was just 15 and that the
walk home afterwards had resulted in a violent assault.

But witnesses who had been with the couple came forward on Ben's behalf and
inaccuracies were found in the girl's story. The charges were dropped and
instead the girl was eventually sentenced to a year for perverting the
course of justice.

According to Home Office research, between 3% and 9% of all reports of rape
are found to be false. Yet the lives of those men accused are often
devastated. Some even commit suicide, so terrible is the stigma of being
charged with sexual assault - even if subsequently cleared.

It's an issue that particularly affects young people, with those aged 16 and
25 making up both the largest group of victims and the accused.

Jason, who is now 18, was also the victim of a false allegation. After
wasting over a year of police time, as well as causing distress both to
Jason and his family, the girl retracted her statement in court. Later it
came to light that she had made three false allegations previously.

Student calls

Margaret Gardener, the director of the False Allegations Support
Organisation (Faso) receives over a thousand calls each year from men
looking for help and advice.

"We are beginning to get a lot of university students phoning us," she says.
"One of the scenarios is going to the pub and then suddenly finding the
morning after you've had a boozy night out and you've been with somebody,
that you get a phone-call from the police because an allegation of rape has
been made."

The impact of an allegation can extend far beyond the legal ramifications.
Gardener works with men and their families to help them deal with the
ostracism they often face within their communities, even long after the
event.

In Jason's case, his neighbour asked to be moved to another flat due to
concern about the accused man's proximity to his daughters. For Ben, his
apprenticeship as a plumber was terminated and he faced widespread suspicion
from people he knew.

"My door became blacklisted," says Ben. "People would rather avoid me than
speak to me, they literally took her word. My dad didn't take it too well
either. He had doubts in what I was saying so that created problems with my
home life.

"It wasn't like I was convicted for it. I think some people still like to
disbelieve me. They definitely regard me as the guilty person."

Ben also believes the police assumed he was guilty from the start. But Dave
Gee from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) maintains that
officers seek to remain even-handed when dealing with rape.

Complainants' anonymity

"In most cases it's one word against the other," he says. "It's very
difficult not only to convict and prosecute, but in most cases difficult to
even establish whether an offence has happened at all.

"There cannot be an assumption that all alleged offenders are guilty. We
have more to do with victims but that should not translate into demonising
male accused people."

But an unfounded charge remains on someone's Criminal Record Bureau (CRB)
file permanently, which can affect future job prospects.

Complainants are granted total anonymity on first reporting a rape.
According to the 1976 Sexual Offences Act, it is a criminal offence for the
media to reveal a victim's identity or any other information that might lead
to them being identified.

If they are charged with an offence such as perverting the course of justice
or perjury in relation to their complaint they can then be named.

But there is no protection for those falsely accused of committing an
assault. Whilst Ben's name found its way into the local newspapers, Jason,
as a 16-year-old, narrowly escaped the media glare.

Conviction rate

There are those who believe that when it comes to rape allegations, men do
not deserve any protection.

Louise - not her real name - is a volunteer for the organisation, Women
Against Rape (War). Three years ago she was the victim of a sexual attack,
but found herself disbelieved and subsequently charged for making a false
rape claim. The case against her was later dropped.

"The whole thing was flung onto me. If I was going to lie surely I would
have gone with some crazy story. I just told the police what had happened.
Had I known what I was going to go through I would have had to think twice
about reporting it."

With only 6% of sexual assaults resulting in conviction and according to
some research, as many as 91% of rapes unreported, Vernon Coaker from the
Home Office is adamant the focus needs to remain on victims rather than
those who've been accused.

"There have been some high-profile cases highlighted by the media where one
or two false allegations have been made," he says.

"But we shouldn't be deflected from the fact that the real issue in respect
to sexual violence is underreporting and to ensure the conviction rate is
improved. That is the thrust of government policy."



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