While the government, the police, the CPS and the courts have been insisting that false allegations of abuse – whether sexual, domestic, historic or contemporary, or whatever – are rare, victims of false allegations have been trying, largely in vain, to correct this misinformation and inform the rest of the world that the truth is to the contrary, they’re actually quite common. Furthermore, they have claimed that the large increase in claims for alleged abuse can partly be explained by the explosion of false claims.
Now, the BBC has broken a story that migrants have been following advice from unscrupulous legal advisors to make false accusations of domestic abuse in order to get preferential treatment to stay in the uk, backed up by the findings of an undercover investigative journalist. Those migrants who have done so, and the people who have advised them (for their own financial gain), clearly care nothing for the harm they inflict on their victims.
The reports have also included the fact that claims of domestic abuse have risen by 50% in 3 years, the implication in including these statistics is clearly that such false claims may be largely responsible for the increase.
The question which begs to be asked is: What is the difference between migrants making false allegations for personal gain and anyone else doing so?
The answer of course is: None.
The sad fact is that there is no shortage of unscrupulous people who are prepared to inflict misery on innocent victims for their own various nefarious ends, and whose motto seems to be: “The end justifies the means”.
In the news article, that end is continued residence in this country; in others, it’s child custody in divorce cases, in others: avoidance of regretted behaviour being discovered, or revenge, or purely financial greed – the temptation of potentially tens of thousands of pounds in compensation. The criminal justice system, driven by so-called ‘victims organisations’, have been trying to prevent such incentives even being mentioned in court. Will they now do the same with these migrants’ claims; after all, some migrants’ claims of abuse will be genuine too.
This is no slight on genuine victims of abuse – we know that real abuse occurs and no-one is suggesting that they’re all liars. The genuine victims don’t need to lie. That means that, of course, the police have to, and should, take all reports of abuse seriously, and treat the complainants with respect (at first at least) on the basis that the complainant may well be genuine. However, the police – and the guidance that they are given on dealing with such reports – should be equally aware of the very real possibility of those reports being false, and their investigations need to reflect that balance.
In one case in the BBC report, one migrant who had been reported to the police for domestic abuse told the police that it was the other way around and, for some reason, the police took his side. In some cases it may well be true that the accused is the victim, but If the police get that wrong and prosecute the genuine victim, you end up with the real perpetrator being rewarded, while the real victim gets punished as the villain and ends up with their life in shreds. I know of one other case in which that has happened.
Whenever false accusers are found out and on the rare occasions when they’re actually prosecuted, everyone says how terrible the false allegations are (usually adding that it’s rare), and while mentioning, almost in passing, the trauma to their victims, they usually place more emphasis on the fact that false allegations may prevent justice for other real victims of abuse.
That is very probably true but I really wish that the authorities would appreciate that the biggest sufferers are the falsely accused themselves, and that being a victim of falsely accusations is as bad as that of abuse, in many cases the effects are far worse.
That may only come to pass when there is a named law of making false allegations, beyond just perverting the course of justice, and when such crimes are actually prosecuted just as much as abuse would be.
See the BBC news article here:
