Dear Mens Rights,

I tried to post this on a throwaway on other subreddits but due to being new it wouldn't go through so, I decide to post on my actual account in the hopes that I can be heard.

I have spent the last 1 and a half years fighting a false allegation of sexual assault.

As of Monday I was found not guilty after only 35 minutes of jury deliberation (For those who don't know, this is insanely fast, and in fact the record speed for my Barrister.)

I come here because I want to be able to talk about my experience, especially after I see so many people have misaligned or flat out wrong thoughts about false allegations and how this works.

So, background.

I met this girl in the building I lived in, we hit it off immediately and ended up having a threesome with another girl. The girl in question stated that she didn't like penetration at the time and that was a-okay with me, I mean, who's going to ask more questions in that situation. This is important later.

After that, seeing as we lived in the same building we hung out almost daily, occasionally doing other sexual stuff with eachother but more of a friendship with fun than anything actually serious.

After about 3 months of knowing her, my cousin, god bless her, passed away from cancer at 18, this put me in some really heavy grieving at the time and a few days afterwards said "Friend" ended up inviting me out with another friend of theirs (Male) for the night as a way to cheer me up, I accepted and went to her flat for pre-drinks.

Now, sparing details once again the basic run down is that we went out on the night, her friend left to go home, and she asked me to come back to her flat, at the time we wern't super drunk or anything and when we got back she invited me into her bed for our normal fun that we have.

Alls good, we enjoy ourselves and the next day is unremarkable, waking up next to her and talking about studying later, hanging out, everything seemed A-Okay.

The morning after that day though, I get a knock on my door at about 4.30 AM. I find the Police at my door, surprised and bewildered I ask what's going on, and they arrested me for sexual assault via digital penetration. I was shocked because even when I did have fun with the girl in question I didn't finger her or penetrate her, our history with eachother led me to know she didn't enjoy that so at first I didn't even know it was her accusing me.

So. 4 AM, I get dragged out my building in handcuffs embarrasingly. Little did I know this is the last time I would see my home.

At the station I was locked in isolation for 10 hours (Called a "Rest period.") and refused access to a solicitor or my appropriate adult (Father, as I have a mental illness that means I have the right to have one called in a situation like this.)

All I can say is from that point, the notion of "Innocent until proven guilty." is 100% total and utter bullshit.

Turns out the girl (Who was bi) had a girlfriend she'd hooked up with a couple weeks prior who found out from a neighbor about me and the girl hooking up. I still can't be certain, but this is why I think she made the allegation.

Now obviously I didn't know this, but suffice to say I had a police interview and thought, it's okay, tell them the whole truth and it will speak for itself, offer to do any DNA tests or such and it'll work out fine. Boy was I wrong.

I was given what's known as police bail, which in the UK is bail before you're charged with a crime. It disallowed me from going near where she lived. Which also happened to be the building where my home was. I wasn't even allowed to collect my stuff and had to have my father take all of my belongings from there.

Turned out the police had done the same, confiscating a lot of my clothing, some cash, my phone and more.

Not only that, but even before I had been charged with a crime (That comes 9 months later!) the investigating officer informed my university who promptly put me on suspension until the issue was resolved.

I was informed not to speak to anyone from the building unless they contact me first, and under no circumstances speak to said girl or I would be jailed if I did (Bail conditions.)

In 1 night, I had lost my home, a lot of my possessions, my phone and a lot of friends. This vindictive person was able to tarnish my name, talk viscious lies about me and I wasn't even able to address her or defend myself.

So, at this time Bail was 3 months, I felt like that was forever, but oh god did I not know what was coming next.

The bail was repeatadly extended, 3 months, 1 months, 2 weeks, 2 weeks and 1 more month. During this time I informed the police of CCTV that could help from 3 locations on the night (She made some claims about what happened out in town that I could disprove easily.) as well as the fact that she had videos on her phone of our encounter and finally facebook messages between us both that were relevant.

That's 2 pieces of CCTV, a phone with proof and an full interview to work with that the police had. Here's how they handled it.

1) The first piece of CCTV they requested from the bar and got the wrong time, they are supposed to check this within 7 days of reciept of the CCTV, 40 ish days afterwards when the officer does check it, turns out to be the wrong time, and doesn't even bother to try and get the right copy.

2) The other cctv from inside the other bar, she watched herself and said it was "Too busy to see any of us" stating that she had watched it for the whole 10 hours of footage (Multiple camera's over a 1 hour period.)

3) They phoned the "Victim" and ASKED HER if that specific evidence was on her phone. Then, she stated that she didn't want to hand her phone over and wont show it to the police. Her reasoning was that it was inconvenient for her because she needed her phone. Apparently the police officer felt that was A-Okay and totally justifiable.

4) The facebook messages that I sent, aka our full logs and timestamped, wern't used, but they used what she sent, un-timestamped truncated messages with parts she didn't like removed.

Now, imagine you have your home, money (Thousands, as without university I have no student finance, which is approximately £10000 over the year.) and reputation ripped away from you, and you wait for months giving every bit of evidence on the night you can to an officer who somehow makes mistakes the whole way and is quite blatantly prejudiced on the issue.

It's not easy. It's painful, it's hurtful. Suicidal thoughts dog your mind and every day seems hard and pointless, now imagine 9 months of that being told you're being charges with said crime and have to stand trial.

It's a confusing moment, you don't know if it's good that you get a concrete chance to defend yourself, or you don't know if the system will be biased the whole way up and that's it, your life, over.

However, through an incredible support network of friends I do have, I made it through that time, after I was served my trial documents I noticed there were tons upon tons of innaccuracies and outright contradictions in her statement, this gave me a bit more confidence but in the end I wanted the medical evidence as that should exonnerate me.

Now imagine my surprise when the "Victim" stated she couldn't do the specific medical test that shows penetration because it's uncomfortable for her. The exam she had which was on the outside only shown no injuries or evidence related to what she claimed (Because it didn't happen, so this was obvious to me.) but the specific test to check for penetration she didn't want to do (Involving a foley catheter and looking at the hymen in more detail, as she had a full unpunctured hymen.)

So, my evidence is fucked over by the police and the test to exonnerate me she wouldn't perform, simultaniously I see on reddit so many idiots and uneducated buffoons claim that false allegation isn't real, or believing the victim without evidence makes sense etc etc. It's Infuriatingly painful to read that when you know you're innocent completely. It opened my eye up to how the world really treats allegations, and innocent until proven guilty is a great concept, but just not reality.

Either way, My court case started nearly 2 weeks ago and lasted 6 days (Excluding weekend). It was supposed to last 3 but we had some delays due to the police.

Such as.

We asked for copies of the CCTV evidence the officer found "Too busy" to notice us in. They were supposed to send this 3 months before trial, they sent the wrong CCTV, then when questioned they waited until deadline (3 weeks before trial) to respond, sending once again the wrong CCTV (Outside the bar, not inside.)

The day of trial we bring this up with the judge who demands the police hand it over, que a very angry investigative officer coming down to hand us 8 disks with a CCTV specific file format our standard software couldn't read. Then when we finally got access to a Crown Prosecution Service laptop with the required software, imagine our dismay to find half the disks are corrupted/not working.

However, in the 4 that were we immediately found evidence that helped us, spotted ourself and the girl and had concrete proof she was lying about some things.

We went in, and the trial was the most nerve wracking experience of my life. Nobody can put into words how terrifying it is to have this hang over your head when you know you're innocent. More than that, the trial went through my birthday so that got ruined too unfortunately.

The details of the trial would be huge to fully share, but, the most important moments I felt contributed to the just verdict is this.

She admitted to lying about not saying some things on the night in question. Thing is, her friend then came on the stand afterwards saying she'd never say them things even as a joke. Her explanation (Unbeknownst to him) was to say that she did say it, but it was an ongoing joke between the 2 of them.

So immediately the jury know her friends not trustworthy.

Also we have the point were her mum admitted that she had told her I had stopped when she asked me to, this was in her mums statement but hers claimed otherwise.

But most importantly.

Her angrily stating that even if I didn't penetrate her (What she was alledging) she regretted it and was in "No fit state to consent", when the CCTV shown her being completely fine upon entering her flat.

Eventually, after many delays we had the jury come back with not guilty on the charges. It was such an overwhelming moment to have this over. This horrible vindictive liar stole my early twenties, took my house and university, my money and reputation and dignity.

Her actions made me contemplate suicide daily for over a year, it made me feel powerless in a system that most definately is biased towards anyone accused regardless of evidence.

Even the judge chastised the police on how they handled the investigation.

The worst part is, even after all of this we can't prove she made the claim maliciously so she's untouchable. I had years of my life taken from me and now I have to build from the ground up and she gets off scot free. It's not fair and it's sure as hell a disgrace but, at least I get to have my freedom and name vindicated.

I applied to have my university suspension lifted yesterday. I am talking with my friend about moving out with him and I've joined the gym again. But nothing will ever change that distrust and anxiety I have around women like that now, nothing will ever get my early twenties back for me.

But I am free, I am strong and I proved myself. So for those who thinks this doesn't happen often, or it's not damaging, or people don't make false allegations I have only one thing to say.

Educate yourself.

And for those who ever find themselves in a similar situation, keep hope, lawyer up, rely only on the truth so you don't get caught up lying about anything and get all the support you can.

I hope this gives a bit more perspective for people on situations like this, if any of yourselves are in a situation like this, feel free to message me if you need support or google up daft moo for a support forum.

Thanks for reading, it's nice to get this off my chest.