Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Prisons are full of people who say they are innocent.
Sometimes they are. Lawyer Nick Wills
sometimes wakes up in a sweat after nightmares in which police are at the
door. Five years ago he was falsely accused of rape. He was 22, had been head
boy at his high school, was popular, and had, as his mother, Viv d'Or says, "lived a
pretty blessed life". When the accusation was
made, he was "chucked in the cells and treated like a common
criminal". It took three months
for his name to be cleared and for the woman who made his life, and the life
of his family a misery, to be put in the dock. "She has no idea
of what she put us through," says d'Or, who
tries to be charitable and remember the woman had a history of psychiatric
problems. "It was a nightmare for a lot of people." Nick Wills is one of
the unsuspecting people going about minding their business when they're
suddenly charged with rape, or murder, or sexual molestation, and become
outcasts. People always wonder if
disproved accusations of a sexual nature might still be true -- the
"where-there's-smoke-there's-fire" theory of moral condemnation. A
murder is black and white. If there is no body, there was no murder. Wills qualified as a
lawyer three years ago, worked as a patent attorney in The rape accusation was
made when he was a student at The inconsistencies
took three months to surface and she finally confessed she had lied. The
woman's name is suppressed. The anguish of Wills'
mother can hardly be imagined. She had put decades of energy into a fine
young man and there he was accused of rape. "In my heart I didn't
believe he had done it," she says. "But we didn't have all the
facts and I certainly wasn't going to say 100 per cent. You would always hope
your son was not a rapist." She is often rung by
parents who believe they are in the same situation as she, their children
wrongly accused. There is, she says, no handbook for people wrongly accused. Forensic psychiatrist
Nigel Fairley says there is little research in the area and little
literature. He believes people
wrongly accused of serious crime probably suffer some form of post-traumatic
stress disorder similar to that suffered by victims. They could become
depressed, withdrawn, uncommunicative and irritable, and have problems with
sleep and mood swings -- up when they are in fighting mood, then down again. He agrees the stigma
from being wrongly accused of serious sexual crime sticks in a way being
accused of murder does not. Roger Laybourn, the lawyer who acted for Laybourn says Edgar's teaching
career -- "and he was considered a remarkable teacher" -- was
destroyed. "He didn't have a
chance to get his name suppressed, and under pressure he resigned from his
job. He had to wait 12 months for trial and during the trial -- two weeks --
he was kept in custody one or two nights. It was just so traumatic. After the
first night in prison he came out an absolute wreck. "It just shows you
can have two or three children saying something and the system doesn't have
the screening process any more." Police once felt
confident to disbelieve allegations, says Laybourn.
Now there's such pressure from organisations such as Rape Crisis, that even
cases with no foundation, like that of Edgar, go to court. "It blighted
his life and the lives of so many close to
him." After his trial, Edgar
described his ordeal as "six months of hell". Laybourn says he believes
Edgar, now writing educational books in He won't talk about his
feelings at the time because he's "soon" going to write a book
about it. He does say that after his arrest, "I thought it would come
right", and was horrified and depressed when he went to trial. On remand in prison he
became depressed. "I could not see anything. The window was too high. It
had its own smell. There was a hole in the wall for the air conditioning, but
not much air was getting through." He worried about his
case and his farm and sometimes woke at night wondering where he was, and
praying to God. When the guilty verdict
was announced at his second trial, he yelled that he was innocent and at home
at the time of the crime. At Paremoremo
prison hospital he was drugged and unable to sleep. But Gibson said at the
time his client's innocence was proven that he had nevertheless "lost
his life". --Evening Post -------------------- CAPTION: Nick Wills was
wrongly accused of rape in 1995. He is still haunted by his wrongful arrest.John Edgar's teaching career was ruined by false
indecency allegations. |