I’ve been found Not Guilty, can I sue my false accuser?

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE I’ve got an NFA, or I have been found Not Guilty. Can I get my false accuser charged for lying? Can I sue my false accuser? The answer to this is not going to be what you want to hear I’m afraid. You can try. Of course you can speak to the police in hope that they will look into it. In the first instance don’t expect them to and expect a brush off. In the event you get lucky and they “look into it” don’t expect it to go very far. Prosecutions for perverting the course of justice in sexual crimes are very few and far between and the ones that are prosecuted often make the news. Just think how few you hear of. Sadly, by the authorities a decision to NFA (no further action) is usually seen as there been “insufficient evidence to charge”. They don’t view it, despite how much evidence they uncover, that you didn’t do it. In the same way a not guilty verdict is not seen as the jury decided he/she didn’t do it but their approach is that there was “insufficient evidence for the jury to be certain he/she did it”. We do not have in England and Wales a verdict of “innocent”. The verdicts available are guilty (he/she did it) or Not Guilty (there was insufficient evidence to be certain he or she did it). Even if the courts intervene mid trial and end the case on procedural grounds or because the prosecution have failed to make a case that showed a crime then the courts enter a Not Guilty verdict with the above definition. So if the police look into a claim of perverting the course of justice and build a case and pass it to the CPS to consider they are using the same standards to decide as they do when deciding to prosecute people accused of sexual crimes. They have to be able to demonstrate with evidence that the crime was committed. They then have to be confident that a reasonable jury would convict using the criminal standard of “beyond reasnoble doubt”. Even if you get past the police and get it to the CPS and the CPS feel they have the evidence (very difficult) and they feel a jury would convict then you have the next hurdle….. the public interest hurdle. It is generally believed by the government/authorities that prosecuting too many of these types of offences would discourage real victims of sexual crimes from coming forward.  For this reason in virtually all cases, if it got this far, they would not charge on this basis alone. The cases you usually see all over the news have usually had huge public interest in the original sexual allegation. For example the recent case of Ellie Williams attracted a lot of attention as Mr. Tommy Robinson injected himself into Ellies claims. Her story went viral, the police investigated her claims and they had no choice but to charge her as the spotlight was on the case. So what can you do? You have been on the most horrendous journey in life. Accused, possibly of some of the worst crimes possible. You may have lost everything. All we can recommend is that you focus on yourself. You can re-build your life. You can move on and start to feel better. Make use of our group, talk to people, look at the support page on the website (www.accused.me.uk/support) where you will find other organisations that may help you. Maybe your thinking about suing your false accuser. Again, except in very rare circumstances would this work. The first hurdle to overcome is the cost of such litigation. You would not get a no win no fee arrangement because the chances of success are so low. I wouldn’t be surprised if the litigation cost would be between £50k and £100k. Then you need to consider if your FA has money and assets that will both cover your litigation costs and compensate you. In the majority of cases this is unlikely. If you were NFA prior to trial or found not guilty then you could be opening up yourself to a civil trial. In order to explain why your False Accuser was telling the truth they will run the allegations as their defence.  His / her defence will be explaining and trying to prove what it is they claim you did to them. All that time trying to keep it all out of the public eye to try and save some of your reputation could be lost at this point. A civil court operates to a much lower standard of proof. Where a jury may have found someone not guilty “beyond reasonable doubt” a civil court “on the balance of probabilities” may well come to a different conclusion thus leaving you with not only your only litigation fees but the fees of your false accuser as well. A loss could be written up by the media that the courts believed your false accuser. I know that people get angry with us in the group when we say there is nothing can be done. It’s pointless, but we say it only because we know that the attempts to make them pay are likely to hurt you even more than you already are. We want you to heal and be moving forward focusing on yourself is far more important than worrying about something that hopefully Karma will take care of later.