Made allegation of rape to me

sellasheep

Two years ago I was volunteering in a charity shop with a girl approx 36 years old. A nice girl but not the full shilling and everyone was aware of this. I got to know her and her partner. She arrived in one day badly swelled and bruised in her face. She claimed her partner was responsible. She carried on and seemed happy with him. A few months later she text me on Facebook claiming he had raped her. I didn't text back as I didn't think it was appropriate. I tried calling her but got no answer. I went into the charity shop and showed the manager the text. We decided to leave it as we did not know what to do. The girl returned to texting me and both of us never referred to her previous text again. Fast forward to today and I read about her partner in the local district court getting a suspended sentence for assaulting her. This mans relation now informs me that her partner could possibly be also having an abduction charge as she did disappear for a while. He said "I could be implicated" for not disclosing the text!!!

I was gobsmacked, surely not?

GingerLily

You could have done a lot more for her, I feel very sorry for this women.

You seem a lot more concerned about yourself then her.

Nichololas

I'm pretty certain you're not culpable for anything, but if 'implicated' means 'called in for questioning' then sure, why wouldn't you be? You saw a woman who had been assaulted, and who later told you she had been raped, and you left it because you didn't know what to do? C'mon man, if it was your sister or your niece I'm confident you'd know what to do.

silverharp

i cant see any legal implication, at a push the manager might have broken a company rule but as far as I know its only if working with kids that you might have a professional duty to see incidents reported

Tenigate

Not a chance. You don't have a duty of care to anyone in that scenario you outlined.

The fact you showed the text to your manager fulfilled an ethical responsibility to your co-worker, but once again you were under no obligation to do so.

So tell that person who's talking nonsense to you to get a life.

Pelvis

Misleading thread title...

...__...

GingerLily wrote: »

You could have done a lot more for her, I feel very sorry for this women.

You seem a lot more concerned about yourself then her.

He tried calling her as he felt it wasn't appropriate to have that discussion over text.
He showed it to a senior staff member how much more do you want him to go?
He did his best in the circumstances outlined no one can blame him for not doing enough.
to even suggest that is really inappropriate.

op its not your responsibility to report a rape or potential domestic situation you tried to reach out and she didn't respond.
I really hope you don't feel bad about "not doing enough" if you went to the cops you would have been told there's nothing they can do till she makes a complaint she did he got charged,
Justice was done in the end.

koumi

Was in a similar scenario a couple of years ago, a classmate who I had gone out after class with on a Friday afternoon for a cup of coffee ended up going missing and turning up several days later bruised and swollen after very obviously having gotten a bit of a beating.
While we were having coffee (she was having a pint) a couple of men came over and joined us (I say us, but they introduced themselves to her). Red flags all over it so I tell her I was leaving and asked if she was ready to go. She refused and I said I'd wait five more minutes, pulled out a cigarette and told her I would be leaving after it. I don't know who the men were but it was all very dodge and reluctant to leave her there by herself but she wouldn't budge. She had previously been raped and the perp(s) in that instance had been charged so I knew that she was a danger to herself under the circumstances. I don't believe for a minute that she didn't know who those guys were. Either way I left and thought nothing more about it until the following day when I got a call from another classmate asking if I had been in contact with her. She explained that X was missing and family had contacted guards. I described the situation and was left overwhelmed with the possibilities of what might have happened.

Went back to class on Monday and still no word, people asking me questions like I knew what was going on, when I was as in the dark as anybody. Eventually she arrived in the middle of a class, still wearing the same gear she had been the previous Friday, half torn from her skin and covered in bruising and completely ragged. Everyones mouth hit the floor. During a break in class my tutor pulled me aside and asked me what the story was, still completely unaware told him the same thing, I literally have no information for you other than what I've desecribed.
The woman had kids and as she had never arrived to collect them after class that day, the gaurds had contacted social services and they had now taken her kids into care. No one ever contacted me from any of those departments and given that she was obviously in communication with them thought no more about it. If ever anyone wanted me to give evidence I would have been more than happy to.

Fast forward a couple of years and after a series of events, I discussed these events with a garda from victim support unit. I was concerned that either this information hadn't been considered or there was some part of it that needing investigating. They had absolutely no interest in the information I provided and one of the clerks I contacted after the fact practically told me it was none of my business. I also found myself disclosing the same information to a counselor at a later date, he asked me if I had spoken to anyone at the time and I told him nobody had asked me. What I'm learning at the moment however is that she was never my responsibility. I did my level best to make sure she was safe and whatever happened after that was not my fault.

At the very least your colleague is now in the process of resolution and I really don't think you need to feel guilty for events you had no power to control.

leggo

I sympathise OP. I worked with a girl once who...you’d be around her while something happened, then hear her telling others the story later and it wouldn’t even nearly be the same thing. She wouldn’t have a good word to say about anyone in her life, they were all evil and out to get her. She’d send me long, rambling Facebook messages about the horrible things that were going on and you wouldn’t know what to believe because, now and then, there’d be evidence that something had in fact happened. But then I’d also seen her tell bare-faced lies and exaggerate stories within an inch of their life. Eventually I took it to a nice manager in the place we worked and let her know so I knew I did something about it, without wanting to get dragged into the person’s messy life.

Now if most people in my life came to me with personal problems, I’d go out of my way to be whatever they needed to get through it. I regularly post in PI here sure and even try to help randoms! So nobody could accuse me of only caring about myself with any real conviction. But there are times where you have to draw a line, especially with people you work/interact with that you haven’t taken that plunge with to be ‘good friends’. Ultimately, helping someone out is nice and we should all try do it as often as we can, but it’s not a requirement by any means. With the exception of maybe family (and even then there’s a line), you get to choose. People have to help themselves first and foremost. And that’s a strong line I’ve drawn by learning through experience: if you try and be someone’s support system and they refuse to change their behaviour or help themselves, that’s it. Otherwise they’re just going to build a dependence towards you and you become a safety net for every bad decision they make.

As for whether you could be ‘implicated’, that’s complete waffle. So what you’re effectively a Garda now, duty bound upon hearing a crime was committed to investigating, determining the veracity of the claim and ensuring justice is enforced? Don’t stress a single bit over that.

professore

I think people should read the story "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf".

This thing of automatically believing victim stories is just insane. There are people who lie from one end of the day to the other, are we supposed to just believe these people?

On the other hand, most people are not like this, and I would believe them and take any complaints seriously.

Another thing, if someone beats up a woman and is say a member of a violent drug gang, you could be putting yourself and your family in great danger reporting them.

So it's not as straightforward as people make out on Twitter.