by Stella Kaye

Created on: January 07, 2008   Last Updated: September 19, 2008

THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN THE UK AND IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE...

Imagine this: You are a law-abiding citizen, an upright man with no previous convictions. One day the police break into your house with no search warrant and confiscate all your computer equipment. They haul you off to the cells for several hours and interrogate you, allowing you nothing to eat or drink. You are totally confused. Since you are innocent, you obviously have no idea what you have been accused of. A few days later you find someone has made an allegation of sexual abuse against you, the Police raid your house again, carting off anything they think can be used in evidence and you are taken back to the cells for further questioning. If you say "No comment" to every question fired at you, you will stand far better chance of staying out of jail but being innocent and eager for the truth to be known, you give them too much information about yourself, thus allowing them to twist your words to ensure a conviction.

Your friends are interrogated too. If any of them say anything good about you when they provide a statement, it is disregarded or conveniently placed at the bottom of the pile - the police are only looking for the bad. For months nothing happens and you get very little legal advice as the duty solicitor you have been allocated is always "Very busy," only allowing you five minutes of his valuable time. But meanwhile the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are gathering together as many lies as they can and they are extremely proficient at it with unlimited resources at their disposal. They are slowly but surely making you fit the profile.

A few months later the police again take you in for further questioning. Suddenly, out of the blue, further allegations are brought - "Crimes" allegedly committed by you way back in the past. Now any logical-thinking human being would see a connection between the recent accusations and the ones from the past. But no, the police say the allegations are entirely separate and they will swear your accusers do not know each other although you know full well that they do... after all it was you who introduced them in the first place! You were all good friends at one point. But with the lure of compensation packages, unscrupulous people have no qualms about dragging an innocent man's name through the mud and sending him to jail for things that never happened.

At present in the UK it is quite possible to be branded a sex offender and be imprisoned

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