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Had drunk sex with my oldest friend and now I'm being investigated for rape
Hi, I'm pretty sure this is a classic story you've all heard a million times but here you go.
STORY
The short version: a couple of weeks ago I [26M] went round to my friend [26F]'s house and we got very drunk (as in I had half a bottle of wine and 60-70% of a bottle of rum). I remember virtually nothing, reasonable parts of the early bits of the night but just a few fragments of the later bits. Later on we had sex. I remember that she instigated it (I woke up to her kissing me) and I remember being on top of her and she said something like "this is wrong we shouldn't do this" and I stopped. Nothing between those two bits. When we woke up the next morning we were both mildly embarrassed but we were joking about it a bit. She was joking that I should get checked for STDs because apparently she had been having tons of unprotected sex with random guys including a heroin user that uses questionable needles (!!!!)
(for what it's worth I swear by condoms and before this I'd only ever had unprotected sex with two girls before and those were long term relationships)
So for a couple of days it was fine apart from me being terrified about having HIV or something. We were messaging like normal and joking about it still. I wasn't particularly bothered that we had sex, like I would have preferred not to, but whatever it's just a dumb thing that a lot of people do at some point. Then one day out of nowhere she tells me I took advantage of her, she says she was way more drunk than me and it was all me. I told her yeah no definitely not, I was just as drunk, and I said if she wants to meet and talk about it I would. She says **** off, we don't talk, then we block each other a couple of days later.
Now for the vital piece of information you definitely could have guessed: she's seeing a guy apparently (I knew about him but she said it wasn't serious). She obviously feels guilty about cheating on him, and she said as much in the morning. So basically she's decided to accuse me of raping her to absolve herself of the guilt, maybe she's told him and he's pressured her, maybe not. Quite frankly I don't care.
For a few days it was really nice, because this girl was honestly such a negative influence in my life and this is at least the 4th or 5th time I've said I'll never talk to her again (mostly just because she's been a **** friend in the past). It was really good to be rid of her. A few days later I get back from a short trip and have a note through my letterbox saying I need to call the police. I had a suspicion of what it would be immediately, because realistically there's nothing else it could have been. I wouldn't have thought she'd do something this callous, but I gave up predicting her actions a while ago so I wasn't totally surprised. I call the police, get a reply a couple of days later saying come in for a voluntary interview, which I did yesterday.
POLICE EXPERIENCE
The first thing I have to say about that is **** me, I wouldn't have thought it would be so hollywood. It really felt biased and the implications of the lines of questions were that they were trying to construct this character of me as some lonely scorned guy who had secretly had a crush on his friend for ages (in reality it's basically the other way around - more on this later). If I hadn't taken the solicitor they offered me I honestly think I would have been ****ed - the whole thing was designed to trip me up. In the end I went with a prepared statement and said 'no comment' to almost everything else, on the lawyer's advice. I didn't really want to do this, the whole 'no comment' thing made me feel like it made me look like a criminal with something to hide, but after a bit of the interview I really understood why he insisted that I do it. It felt really stupid, there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to comment on because the girl's statement was really in depth and a lot of it was either false, inaccurate or exaggerated, but I couldn't because if I slipped up on one word that'd have been the end for me. Not to mention I really don't remember that much and I'd have to guess the answer to quite a lot of the questions. Overall the whole thing just made me lose a lot of faith in the justice system. I've never really dealt with the police before and it was just shocking how much it felt like they were just trying to get a conviction regardless of the truth. I do believe that the vast majority of rape accusations are legitimate, but this overly aggressive process just seems like it undermines the whole investigation, and of course I'm furious at her for invalidating the experiences of people who really got raped.
The one question I did answer was 'has Girl ever made any advances on you before?' - because she made a similar pass at me last time we got drunk a couple of weeks earlier. Fortunately I was more sober that time and rejected her. I only went round with a bottle of wine and wasn't planning to drink any more because I didn't want the same thing to happen - the rum was her idea and I objected at first, and I kept saying I was going to leave and she convinced me to stay. The night of the Incident she gave me a lapdance, early on before we were really drunk, and took me to her bedroom to show me her bondage collar, put it on and asked me to choke her with it (I did and it broke). She didn't mention the lapdance in her statement and she got the timing of the collar thing wrong, said it was when we were having sex but in reality it was at least five hours earlier.
I AM SCARED
If it was just this it'd probably be clear cut and they'd just no crime it right? The complication is that her younger cousin was there for a lot of the night and she wasn't drinking, and she gave a statement saying basically I didn't seem as drunk as Girl. My lawyer doesn't seem to think that's a problem because she obviously wasn't there for the actual incident, but it worries me a lot. She was also on the phone to this guy, apparently I spoke to him and he's obviously going to say I seemed more sober than her too. The lawyer says it's 1v1 but it's not really because of her cousin, and because the police seem to be actively trying to charge me. The policewoman herself seemed nice and we got on quite well but the questions were really concerning.
This could ruin my life. I'm a teacher, and it would end my career. I'm about to fly literally halfway across the planet in a couple of weeks for a new job and if they call me back for a court date I'm screwed. I have no real money and the flight alone would be £500+, never mind that my contract would definitely just get terminated and I would lose a lot. Nine month contract, by the way, I'm planning to travel around Asia for a bit afterwards and my plan was to get another job maybe in South America or something after that anyway.
I've read something to the effect of only 8% of cases result in a guilty verdict, and only ~15% result in a charge in the first place. Is this true? What are the criteria for a charge? What implication does it have if I'm not charged but she isn't accused of false reporting - is this a thing that goes on my record too? Also, surely all false rape accusations and genuine rape cases look more or less the same in circumstances like this, so how on earth do they figure out which ones are real and what are my chances?
Is there anything I can do?
If I remember small pieces of information should I provide them or could it hurt me because I didn't provide them earlier? For example, there's this part about her being on the phone to her boyfriend for ages and I apparently took her phone off her. I don't remember actually doing it but I do remember why now - she was calling her ex (who she harasses) and we had an agreement to not let each other call exes and she definitely called him so I'm fairly sure it was that. I no commented this at the time but it's obviously designed to portray me as jealous or whatever and I don't know if I should fight that now I know what happened?
Should I be filing any charges against her? I mean in reality she definitely instigated this and if she's given me an STD then I'm extremely pissed off and absolutely feel assaulted. When do I claim compensation from her for the emotional trauma and how do I do it? Bear in mind that most of me just wants to leave the country for my new job and not look back, and idk if doing anything like that will require me to come back.
Sorry for the great wall of text. It was partially just to vent but if anyone has any general or more specific advice then I'll love you forever. Thanks for everything.
STORY
The short version: a couple of weeks ago I [26M] went round to my friend [26F]'s house and we got very drunk (as in I had half a bottle of wine and 60-70% of a bottle of rum). I remember virtually nothing, reasonable parts of the early bits of the night but just a few fragments of the later bits. Later on we had sex. I remember that she instigated it (I woke up to her kissing me) and I remember being on top of her and she said something like "this is wrong we shouldn't do this" and I stopped. Nothing between those two bits. When we woke up the next morning we were both mildly embarrassed but we were joking about it a bit. She was joking that I should get checked for STDs because apparently she had been having tons of unprotected sex with random guys including a heroin user that uses questionable needles (!!!!)
(for what it's worth I swear by condoms and before this I'd only ever had unprotected sex with two girls before and those were long term relationships)
So for a couple of days it was fine apart from me being terrified about having HIV or something. We were messaging like normal and joking about it still. I wasn't particularly bothered that we had sex, like I would have preferred not to, but whatever it's just a dumb thing that a lot of people do at some point. Then one day out of nowhere she tells me I took advantage of her, she says she was way more drunk than me and it was all me. I told her yeah no definitely not, I was just as drunk, and I said if she wants to meet and talk about it I would. She says **** off, we don't talk, then we block each other a couple of days later.
Now for the vital piece of information you definitely could have guessed: she's seeing a guy apparently (I knew about him but she said it wasn't serious). She obviously feels guilty about cheating on him, and she said as much in the morning. So basically she's decided to accuse me of raping her to absolve herself of the guilt, maybe she's told him and he's pressured her, maybe not. Quite frankly I don't care.
For a few days it was really nice, because this girl was honestly such a negative influence in my life and this is at least the 4th or 5th time I've said I'll never talk to her again (mostly just because she's been a **** friend in the past). It was really good to be rid of her. A few days later I get back from a short trip and have a note through my letterbox saying I need to call the police. I had a suspicion of what it would be immediately, because realistically there's nothing else it could have been. I wouldn't have thought she'd do something this callous, but I gave up predicting her actions a while ago so I wasn't totally surprised. I call the police, get a reply a couple of days later saying come in for a voluntary interview, which I did yesterday.
POLICE EXPERIENCE
The first thing I have to say about that is **** me, I wouldn't have thought it would be so hollywood. It really felt biased and the implications of the lines of questions were that they were trying to construct this character of me as some lonely scorned guy who had secretly had a crush on his friend for ages (in reality it's basically the other way around - more on this later). If I hadn't taken the solicitor they offered me I honestly think I would have been ****ed - the whole thing was designed to trip me up. In the end I went with a prepared statement and said 'no comment' to almost everything else, on the lawyer's advice. I didn't really want to do this, the whole 'no comment' thing made me feel like it made me look like a criminal with something to hide, but after a bit of the interview I really understood why he insisted that I do it. It felt really stupid, there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to comment on because the girl's statement was really in depth and a lot of it was either false, inaccurate or exaggerated, but I couldn't because if I slipped up on one word that'd have been the end for me. Not to mention I really don't remember that much and I'd have to guess the answer to quite a lot of the questions. Overall the whole thing just made me lose a lot of faith in the justice system. I've never really dealt with the police before and it was just shocking how much it felt like they were just trying to get a conviction regardless of the truth. I do believe that the vast majority of rape accusations are legitimate, but this overly aggressive process just seems like it undermines the whole investigation, and of course I'm furious at her for invalidating the experiences of people who really got raped.
The one question I did answer was 'has Girl ever made any advances on you before?' - because she made a similar pass at me last time we got drunk a couple of weeks earlier. Fortunately I was more sober that time and rejected her. I only went round with a bottle of wine and wasn't planning to drink any more because I didn't want the same thing to happen - the rum was her idea and I objected at first, and I kept saying I was going to leave and she convinced me to stay. The night of the Incident she gave me a lapdance, early on before we were really drunk, and took me to her bedroom to show me her bondage collar, put it on and asked me to choke her with it (I did and it broke). She didn't mention the lapdance in her statement and she got the timing of the collar thing wrong, said it was when we were having sex but in reality it was at least five hours earlier.
I AM SCARED
If it was just this it'd probably be clear cut and they'd just no crime it right? The complication is that her younger cousin was there for a lot of the night and she wasn't drinking, and she gave a statement saying basically I didn't seem as drunk as Girl. My lawyer doesn't seem to think that's a problem because she obviously wasn't there for the actual incident, but it worries me a lot. She was also on the phone to this guy, apparently I spoke to him and he's obviously going to say I seemed more sober than her too. The lawyer says it's 1v1 but it's not really because of her cousin, and because the police seem to be actively trying to charge me. The policewoman herself seemed nice and we got on quite well but the questions were really concerning.
This could ruin my life. I'm a teacher, and it would end my career. I'm about to fly literally halfway across the planet in a couple of weeks for a new job and if they call me back for a court date I'm screwed. I have no real money and the flight alone would be £500+, never mind that my contract would definitely just get terminated and I would lose a lot. Nine month contract, by the way, I'm planning to travel around Asia for a bit afterwards and my plan was to get another job maybe in South America or something after that anyway.
I've read something to the effect of only 8% of cases result in a guilty verdict, and only ~15% result in a charge in the first place. Is this true? What are the criteria for a charge? What implication does it have if I'm not charged but she isn't accused of false reporting - is this a thing that goes on my record too? Also, surely all false rape accusations and genuine rape cases look more or less the same in circumstances like this, so how on earth do they figure out which ones are real and what are my chances?
Is there anything I can do?
If I remember small pieces of information should I provide them or could it hurt me because I didn't provide them earlier? For example, there's this part about her being on the phone to her boyfriend for ages and I apparently took her phone off her. I don't remember actually doing it but I do remember why now - she was calling her ex (who she harasses) and we had an agreement to not let each other call exes and she definitely called him so I'm fairly sure it was that. I no commented this at the time but it's obviously designed to portray me as jealous or whatever and I don't know if I should fight that now I know what happened?
Should I be filing any charges against her? I mean in reality she definitely instigated this and if she's given me an STD then I'm extremely pissed off and absolutely feel assaulted. When do I claim compensation from her for the emotional trauma and how do I do it? Bear in mind that most of me just wants to leave the country for my new job and not look back, and idk if doing anything like that will require me to come back.
Sorry for the great wall of text. It was partially just to vent but if anyone has any general or more specific advice then I'll love you forever. Thanks for everything.
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