FACT

Andrew Chandler is an historian who has written a biography of the late Bishop George Bell. When the Church of England investigated an allegation that the Bishop had abused a child some sixty years earlier they made an out of court settlement to the complainant. Andrew Chandler was dismayed in the way this was handled […]

Many FACT members have been deeply hurt by the police policy of “believing the victim”. Someone facing a wrongful allegation of abuse may well feel that they start at a serious disadvantage when the “victim’s” account is automatically believed. They are dismayed to find that the normal presumption of innocence is reversed and they are […]

‘Behind The Blue Line My fight against racism and ediscrimination in the Police’ By Gurpal Virdi, is now available from Biteback Publications here. Use the promotion code on this flyer to get a discount. Detective Sergeant Gurpal Singh Virdi’s exemplary career in the Metropolitan Police Service ended when he spoke out against racism within it: […]

The Oxford University research paper ‘The Impact of Being Wrongly Accused of Abuse in Occupations of Trust: Victim’s Voices’ describes the terrible suffering of the falsely accused and their friends and family. The effects of a wrongful allegation are long lasting or even life-long. With this in mind I wanted to find out how people […]

False allegations of child sexual abuse (CSA) do happen. Nobody knows for sure how many are false, because there are serious problems in knowing who is factually innocent. The majority of people accused of this dreadful crime are not convicted. Between 2012-14, 17% of those accused were convicted, read more here. Cynics, and victims of […]

Thanks to Dr Ros Burnett, Oxford University Criminology Department, for bringing the following news items to our attention Some FACT members have suffered injustice due to failures of disclosure. We now have a very welcome opportunity to submit evidence to the Justice Committee. We believe that contrary to the view previously expressed by the DPP […]

The following is a blog from Simon Warr reproduced with his kind permission. Simon was himself the victim of false allegations of child abuse and his horrific experience is described in his book Presumed Guilty. Although there is mounting public concern about disclosure failures by police and prosecutors – especially when allegations of a sexual […]

Our latest edition of FACTion is available here This issue has articles on a university innocence project, the new All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice, the results of FACT’s questionnaire on coping strategies used by the falsely accused and one peron’s experience of being wrongly accused. There is an article reviewing 20 years […]

Imagine you are a family doctor, you have known the patient in front of you for as long as you can remember. Sadly, you have had to tell them they have a life threatening illness. They become very distressed. Would you try and comfort them with a hug, or would you give them a hand […]

This conference is coming up shortly on 16th February at the The University of Manchester School of Law. This may be of interest to the wrongfully accused and their legal advisers. Lectures include: What innocence projects do The A to Z of appeals and how to get your evidence submitted Disclosure Surviving a miscarriage of […]