Lives torn apart by false rape allegations
ROBERT Adlington’s ordeal follows in the wake of a number of other cases where rape trial have collapsed after detectives failed to disclose vital evidence.
Last year 22-year-old criminology student Liam Allan had his life “torn away” after being charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault.
His trial at Croydon Crown Court collapsed when the Metropolitan Police were ordered to hand over a computer disk containing 40,000 messages which revealed the alleged victim pestered him for casual sex.
The student said everything in his life had been “flipped upside down” by the process, which included being on bail for two years and being warned he faced the prospect of a 12-year jail term and being put on the sex offender’s register for life.
Prosecution barrister Jerry Hayes accused police of “sheer incompetence” over the case.
Before the trial the defence team had repeatedly asked for the phone messages to be handed over but was told there was “nothing to disclose”.
In another case Ross Bullock, 38, from Redditch, Worcestershire killed himself after police refused to believe that texts on his phone proved the sex had been consensual.
After his arrest in 2015 Mr Bullock was questioned by police and bailed for a month despite showing them text messages that strongly suggested he was innocent. Even when officers decided against action, he was warned he could be charged at a later date.
Torture
Finally, after a “year of torment”, Mr Bullock hanged himself in the garage of the family home, leaving a note revealing he had “hit rock bottom” and that with his death “I’m free from this living hell”.
His body was found by his mother Carole. His father Ronald, 76, said: “Ross would still be alive now if the police had dealt with the allegation sensitively.’ And Mrs Bullock, 74, added: “The allegation changed Ross as a person. He cut himself off.’
Mr Bullock’s parents are now contemplating civil action against West Mercia Police.
The rape trial of Samson Makele, 28, collapsed at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London earlier this year when it emerged that images from the defendant’s phone of him in bed naked with his alleged victim had not been disclosed by Met detectives.
Lawyers for Mr Makele, who had been under investigation for a year and half, said that if they had not recovered the photographs themselves the trial could have resulted in a miscarriage of justice and the accused being wrongly deported.
Senior officers claim the errors are not due to incompetence but rather about a lack of resources.
Former Met detective chief inspector Peter Kirkham said: “Since 2010, we have reduced the number of police officers around the country by about 20,000 – that’s about 15 per cent.”
He warned that officers were “stressed” and “haven’t got time to do their jobs properly”.
A Home Office study suggested only four per cent of cases of sexual violence reported to police are thought to be false.