First Time Accused

Tone1337 · 2017-05-24T12:46:56+00:00

Get a lawyer. I wouldn't leave anything to chance...

EricAllonde · 2017-05-24T13:03:25+00:00

Now the second conversation I have no memory of and there's nothing in my phone indicating there was a conversation.

The second case could be a false accusation, a woman making something up just to support her friend and try to bolster her complaint.

I'd suggest you demand that they produce evidence of the second case before entertaining any discussion about it. If they refuse to produce the texts but insist they do exist, then put your foot down and state that your phone has no record of texts sent to that person and you believe they are making a false accusation. Nip it in the bud right then and there.

That doesn't help with the first case, but at least it halves the challenge you face and puts them on the back foot.

With regards to the first case: it's hard to comment without knowing exactly what you said, but it sounds like the woman is choosing to get offended over something pretty minor that any reasonable and well-adjusted adult would just shrug off and ignore. I've seen that happen before.

At a minimum, make sure to point out that the woman did not ask you to stop and (presumably) she didn't block messages from your number - something which is trivially easy to do on a smartphone these days. Since whatever you said wasn't serious enough for her to bother doing either of those things, she can hardly claim to have been very upset by it.

As far as the legal side goes: here in Australia, if someone goes to the police to complain about harassment, the first question the police ask is, "Have you explicitly told them to stop contacting you?". If the person says no, the police aren't remotely interested - they'll tell you to go away and do that, then only come back if the person continues afterwards. Telling the person to stop is the very first step in making a case for any sort of unwanted communications.

I don't know anything about Canada's laws, but it is a commonwealth country like Australia so there should be a fair number of similarities. While your company may seek to discipline you for your texts, it seems unlikely that you could face any legal issues over a single string of texts where the recipient hasn't even asked you to stop. But IANAL of course.

Imthere · 2017-05-24T13:45:38+00:00

Get a lawyer. Save a copy of the texts. Both via screen capture, and a backup of the phone.

Send the screen caps to your lawyer. That gives them a timestamp for the courts. Which shows the full context of the conversation. i.e. if she produces things out of context, you can produce the full context.

But... Canada is a modern feminist western country. Offence is in the eye of the "victim". It doesn't matter what you said, or what your intent was. If she's offended, she's right and you're wrong.

For the second one, you have a much stronger case. Which you might be able to leverage into showing that the two of them are colluding to frame you. Which makes it easier to throw out the first case.

Don't say anything to anyone about this. Don't talk about it at work. Don't talk to them at work.

Get a recorder and record EVERYTHING. ALL DAY AT WORK. Save copies of the recordings on a drive.

That way if they later claim you were continuing to harass them, etc. You can produce the recordings and show they're liars. The cost of a recorder and the time to do it is MUCH LESS than the cost of losing (or even fighting) a lawsuit.

And start looking for another job. Unless these two women leave, your job environment is permanently poisoned.

Talk to a doctor, and see if he can write you a note for stress leave. i.e. you're too stressed about these accusations to do your job, given the hostile work environment.

Your best bet is to build a wall of paperwork, documentation, recordings, and statements from third parties. The courts don't like you saying "I'm fine". They do like tons of paperwork showing what actually happened.

Rasalom72 · 2017-05-24T17:30:38+00:00

Your phone carrier can get you all text sent and received even if you have no record of it on your phone. Get these and have them available to refute the claims by the second person. You can prove she is lying with these records.

AS for the first, what you do outside of work and outside of work hours has no impact on your work life. If this employee is bringing this to your workplace, you simply tell them that you thought the coworker was a friend as you had their phone number to text them outside of work hours and were looking for some support to help you deal with your alcoholism, but that it seems you were mistaken and she won't be contacted again.

Assuming that she gave you her contact information so you could reach her outside of work hours, and that you didn't obtain it or need it to do your job, there is no reason for someone to give you their personal contact information if they didn't want you to contact them.

I wouldn't worry to much about losing your job... as an alcoholic in Canada, you are protected from being fired because of your condition.

Title	First Time Accused
Author	oktotheday
Upvotes	14
Comments	6
Date	May 24, 2017 10:49 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/6d1d9z/first_time_accused/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/first-time-accused.922016 https://theredarchive.com/post/922016

Comments