Like many of those who have been affected by a false allegation of sexual abuse, my heart sank when I turned on Women’s Hour on January 9th 2023 and heard yet again the claim that such cases were very rare. I’m afraid it was too upsetting to go on listening. The comment was made in […]

FACT has known for a long time that the appeal system in England is failing those who have suffered the worst abuse the state can inflict on a citizen, a wrongful conviction. The catastrophic failure of justice that led to over 550 post office workers being wrongly accused of stealing may have been a shock […]

The title is a quote from an article on Peter Joyce’s new website ‘Blackstone’s Drum‘. Blackstone (1723-1780) famously said “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This principle is said to have influenced the nineteenth-century development of “beyond a reasonable doubt” as the burden of proof in criminal law […]

In August the College of Policing published new guidance on the investigation of non recent sexual abuse. You can read the document here. While the updated guidance advises that police should gather all evidence both towards and away from the allegation, it is striking that the document contradicts this principle by its failure to even […]

Whether or not all memories are accurate is of vital importance to the wrongfully accused. This is particularly the case when the allegations are historical. In such cases, there will usually be no witnesses to the event described by the complainant, and no forensic evidence. Records made by the accused may well have been lost […]

An article on The Justice Gap website gives an interesting insight into the mind of Danny Day who falsely accused a fireman Dave Bryant of raping him three decades earlier. Dave Bryant was convicted in 2013 and sent to prison. His case was quashed on appeal in 2016. Shortly after his release his wife Lynn […]

A police officer was sentenced to three years in prison for perverting the course of justice. According to Sky News Senior Crown Prosecutor David Davies said “Hitesh Lakhani called 101 alleging he had witnessed a sexual assault that he knew did not happen. This was a spiteful act over a disagreement about hedge trimmings in […]

Ros Burnett, an academic linked to the Oxford University Criminology Department has written an article for the Justice Gap on the issue of anonymity until charge for those accused of sexual offences. Leaks to the press about allegations of sexual offences have seriously damaged the reputations, careers and safety of many famous people. For every […]

The recent conviction of Carl Beech for perverting the course of justice has been long awaited, not only by the victims of his foul crime, but by the many, many others who have suffered the torture of being falsely accused of sexual abuse of children. The story of how his fabrications were swallowed hook line […]

Richard Webster was an investigative journalist, well loved by FACT members, who died in 2011 aged 60. Our chairman has written this tribute which is particularly pertinent as our 20th Anniversary approaches. Richard researched and wrote about many of the issues central to FACT’s work, he was very far sighted and I believe decades ahead […]