[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That’s not true. Police do not assume women are lying when they say they have been sexually assaulted. However, they carry out their investigation with the assumption that the accuser could be lying. Just as they do for other crimes.

What makes sexual assault difficult to prosecute is that in the absence of witnesses or physical evidence, it’s one person’s word against another. And it’s very hard to prosecute someone on that basis for any crime. If you allege to the police that an acquaintance tried to extort $5000 from you, and you want him charged, you’re going to have a difficult time making charges stick if the only evidence presented is your testimony.

And yes, the police might probe and question to see if you’re telling the truth. Because people lie to the police all the time.

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To illustrate, this happened on Friday night: We got a knock on the door at 10:15, and a 14 year old girl, an acquaintance (not close friend) of my daughter asked to speak to her. She told my daughter she had been in a fight with her step-father, and he pushed her down the stairs. This wasn’t the first time he had used violence on her. Police had been called before. She couldn’t return home.

We told her she was welcome to stay. After talking it over, my wife and I decided the best course was to call the police and see what they advised. In the meantime, we made up the spare bed for her to stay over. When the police arrived, they disclosed that they had spoken with the parents before, and the previous incidents were not clear-cut. The girl had made serious allegations that were challenged by both parents and her siblings. But they left to go talk to the family and find out what happened.

They returned at midnight. The girl had not been in a physical altercation with her stepfather. In fact, she hadn’t seen either of her parents since earlier in the day, and had been at another friend’s house earlier in the evening, where she had told her parents she was sleeping over. The parents were shocked to learn where she was, and that she was alleging she had been subjected to violence. The police left with a sharp warning to the girl not to make these sorts of allegations, and to find better ways of dealing with family turmoil.

Then while we were texting the girl’s parents to try to decide what to do, she stormed out of our house at 1 am. We drove around looking for her, and eventually found the mom in her car doing the same. When we left she was holding her head in her hands weeping. We’ve since learned the girl has been admitted for psychiatric treatment.

So is the lesson never to believe a teenage girl when she says she has been physically assaulted? No. The lesson is that the world is a messy, complex place, and to leave room for doubt and nuance.

No the police dont investigate a B&E as if the accuser could be lying, if you call 911 and say your house has been broken into they turn up and assume you are telling the truth, they dont ever suppose you might have kicked in your own back door and stolen your own TV ever, until they find some proof to that effect even though it happens