Going To The Police - Charges For Wasting Police Time

[tomcin]

Hello Everyone,

Im not how to word the question but i will try and give a brief and to the point synopsis of what happened. When my son split from his ex girlfriend she decided to call the police and tell them that he had assaulted her. His treatment by the police after this allegation was appalling and he was basically treated like someone who they decided was guilty. He was locked in a cell for 18hours and could not eat or sleep during that time and when i picked him up from the station the following morning he looked absolutely shell-shocked. This time last year he was at University studying IT but for the last few months he has been sitting at home basically doing nothing. He does not go out at all, he locks the porch door, he keeps all the lights on in the house, he finds it very difficult to sleep and usually ends up falling asleep at around 4 am, he has suffered 2 panic attacks and is currently having councelling sessions. It is very hard to watch and if somebody told me this time last year what would be happening now i would have said that they were absolutely mad and they may need to see a psychiatrist. The police decided that No further action would be taken but the whole experience has changed him completely. He feels that it is totally unfair that his ex made this allegation and she has gotten away with it scott free. Anyway i said i would look into what i can do to hopefully help him get his life back on track and i rang a solicitors firm that specialises in everything. I spoke to a woman who said i could go down to my local police station and tell them i want her charged with wasting police time. I thought this would be a decision undertaken by the police. Does anybody know if this is really possible? Thank you.

[Buenchico]

'No further action' doesn't mean that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that the accused person (i.e. your son) is innocent. It simply means that they've decided that there's insufficient evidence to convict him. (i.e. they might still consider that it's possible, or indeed likely, that he committed the assault but they simply can't prove it in a court of law 'beyond reasonable doubt').

Therefore it doesn't automatically follow that, because they've decided on 'no further action', that they believe that his ex was lying. Even if they do so, they might well have decided that they can't prove it 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

Ask yourself what you would do if you were on a jury and a defendant was accused of wasting police time (by falsely accusing someone of assault) but that defendant simply said "I didn't waste their time; it really happened". Unless the Crown Prosecution Service could clearly show that the accusation MUST be false (e.g. because the person accused of carrying out the assault was abroad at the time that it allegedly happened) how could you be TOTALLY sure (beyond all reasonable doubt) that the defendant hadn't actually been telling the truth? Unless you were COMPLETELY convinced that they'd DEFINITELY lied to the police, you would have no alternative but to declare them 'Not guilty'. So the CPS know that without CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE that a person MUST have lied to the police, there's absolutely no point in charging them with 'wasting police time' (as they're bound to be acquitted).

If you're aware of evidence which could PROVE (beyond all reasonable doubt) that your son's ex lied to the police (such as texts sent to him, by her, making it clear that's exactly what she planned to do) then you should contact either the police or the CPS to lay that evidence before them. Otherwise it's simply one person's word against another and no court of law would be able to convict her if she pleaded 'not guilty'.

[EDDIE51]

Good advice from Buenchico. I am surprised that your solicitor who 'specialises in everything' did not say something along the same lines.
You , an individual, can not order or demand that a person is charged with anything , only the CPS can decide to charge a person or organisation with an offence.
For your son to be arrested and held for 18 hours the police must have thought that the evidence was at least of a level that warranted investigation.
I am NOT saying your son was guilty but if the allegations were obviously false
there would not have been sufficient evidence to arrest him and hold him.

[Buenchico]

Any solicitor who 'specialises in everything' needs to look up 'specialise' in a dictionary!

[hc4361]

Just to be clear - was your son given food and rest time where he could have slept lying down if he wanted to?

[EDDIE51]

I would just like to add that if your son is so 'disturbed' now there is a lot more wrong than just being questioned by the police has caused. You need to find the root cause of his mental health problem ( as that is what it is) it will be a lot more than just being arrested and questioned.

[Mosaic]

Good advice al round. I'd like to add to Eddie's point - your son is suffering mental distress and this won't be made better by instigating more tangles with the law. He really does need to continue with his counselling, speak also with student servcies to see if his uni course can be deferred while he's ill, and to be signed off sick by his GP until he's better.
Rotten thing to go through at Christmas, but best wishes to you both and hoping for a better new year.

[lcg]

he's depressed.....and badly by the sounds of it. he needs love, reassurance and a shrink. go back to your gp and ask for a referral. do not go looking down the legal route - that is probably a complete non-starter. he needs to look for the solution to his unhappiness in himself, not others.

[Peter Pedant]

agree with lcg'z rather harsh analysis
and BuenChico who has always given good advice

some judge said sometime - this is a court of law and not a court of justice !

Everything the police have done has been hinged on the information given by the girl,so everything they did was lawful

There is this tort - malicious falsehood - which is a civil thing
but you basically have to get the girl to say that she knew she was lying when she made a false statement to the police

- and you know you have to be pretty clueless to admit something like that

as lcg says - I think the legal route is a non starter