It Happened To Me

( shown on Channel 5)

Lance Dawson a special needs teacher from Stockport dealt with teenagers who had psychological problems. One of these, who actually had a history of making false allegations, accused Lance of having assaulted her.

In September Stockport social services summoned Lance to their offices. He was told that one of the teenagers had made an allegation of sexual assault against him.

One of the most surprising things for Lance was that he had never taught this girl and also that she was known to be a very sick and disturbed teenager.

Lance was sent home and there followed a two-month inquiry. It involved the social services, the educational staff, the voluntary workers and "virtually everybody in the place."

The records showed that when the alleged attack took place, Lance was more than 12 miles away. And after an exhaustive inquiry Lance was eventually cleared.

When he returned to work, the girl changed her allegation from sexual abuse to rape. The police turned up to Lance's house and made the allegation in front of his daughter.

Lance was devastated that his daughter had to deal with this. "That hurt me a lot," said Lance.

Lance started drinking heavily and began to live a nightmare.

It took about six weeks for the police to determine that the allegation was pure fantasy because it became clear to them that the girl had been making the whole story up.

he was in for a big shock

Emotionally battered and exhausted, Lance decided that the only way forward for the moment was to get back into the swing of things and put all his energies back into his work. However, he was in for a big shock, because he was never allowed to teach in the school again. He was now deemed to be unemployable, and he found that he had been dismissed.

Since then, Lance has come close to suicide on many occasions. He has lost everything that he had worked for. And even though this girl was proved to be a liar, nothing at all happened to her. And she cannot even be named.

"The only reason that I did not top myself was because of my kids," said Lance.

"They took away my job. They took away my friends. They took away my colleagues. I have got three qualifications which are of no use to me any more. I am now trying to find the strength to build a new life. I still have nightmares. I never know when I can fall asleep. I never know when I am going to wake up.

Never again will Lance be able to work in the job for which he devoted over twenty years of his life.

.....................................

Mark Jackson was another man falsely accused of rape. He ended up paying a very heavy price indeed.

By chance, Mark bumped into his ex-girlfriend one evening. He invited her back to his flat for a drink. One thing led to another, and they both admitted to having sex.

 Sometime later the police turned up to his workplace and arrested him claiming that his ex-girlfriend had accused him of rape.

According to his mother, Irene, Mark was taken to a cell where all his clothes were removed. "He had every part of his body swabbed. His fingernails were swabbed. They took samples of pubic hair. He was completely humiliated and degraded by the system, and he was terribly ashamed about what he had been accused of."

Mark had to spend NINE MONTHS in a remand prison.

When the case eventually came to court, the evidence from the ex-girlfriend was completely destroyed by the defence. The jury found that she had clearly been lying and Mark was acquitted very quickly.

However, Mark was not to be left alone. He discovered that his local newspaper had printed her side of the story. The large headline to the story was ...

Jilted Man, 21, Raped his Ex-Girlfriend 

The article was extremely prejudicial to Mark (who was, of course, named) and anyone reading it was likely to think the Mark was guilty, so biased was it.

Mark could not face it. He was a broken man. He felt that no one would ever believe that he was innocent even though he had proved his case in court. According to his mother, he became a recluse and hardly ever left the house.

At 7.45am one Sunday morning, Mark hanged himself.

His mother's bitterness comes through her tears. "As the law stands the name of this woman cannot be revealed. Even after five years I cannot mention this woman's name. She is allowed to walk free. No one knows who she is. Nobody knows what she has done, and she could easily do all this to another man."

It Happened To Me was produced by Independent Image for ITN.

Police Officers who deal with rape allegations in the UK (most of who are women) often report in private that numerous false allegations are made by women simply to hurt men.

A common sentiment expressed by these women can be summarised in the words of one false-accuser whom I heard say the following.

"I didn't care that he was found 'not guilty'. I just wanted to teach him a lesson."

Also see,

Kevin Driscoll Is Innocent

... to see what happens in America to falsely-accused men who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing.