Letters to the Editor
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"I was stunned and terrified," she said. "I felt as if it was me who had been raped."
How could I, a 5ft woman, have possibly raped a strapping, 6ft businessman
A woman falsely accused of date-raping a wealthy businessman has told for the first time how the ordeal ruined her life.
Tanya Hutchison, a 42-year-old mother of five, was cleared of sexual assault but said the nightmarish police investigation had left her permanently scarred.
"My life is in ruins, all because of a claim that was totally ridiculous and should never have been taken seriously," she said.
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When six police officers arrived at her home to arrest her in front of her seven-year-old son, she told them that the man's allegation that she had spiked his drinks with a date-rape drug before forcing him into sex was ludicrous.
But despite her insistence that they had shared an afternoon of consensual sex, she was held in a police cell for four hours.
Then she had to describe every explicit detail of the encounter in a two-hour interview with five officers - four of them men - who she claims treated her as if she were guilty.
"I was stunned and terrified," she said. "I felt as if it was me who had been raped.
"I had to tell the officers every aspect of what I'd done with the man, which was deeply humiliating.
"They ransacked my home and took away my bedsheets, phone and, worst of all, my underwear to carry out forensic tests.
"I was questioned in a manner I felt was unnecessarily aggressive.
"I couldn't understand why I was being made to feel like a criminal over a claim that was so unbelievable.
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"I feel petrified when I hear police sirens and my confidence in the legal process is badly shaken."
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"But I liked him and thought he was serious about me so I didn't object. We each drank about a bottle of wine, talking and laughing together in a sweet and romantic way, and then he suggested we head to my bedroom.
"We had sex and it was entirely consensual."
"Afterwards, as we lay on the bed, he started talking about how much he loved his wife and how he would never leave her.
"His whole manner changed and he seemed very cold.
"He got dressed, walked into the kitchen and threw £60 on the table, saying, 'Buy something for the kids.' I was horrified that he seemed to be treating me like a prostitute.
"I was angry and felt used and cheap.
"In the heat of the moment, I threatened to tell his wife about us.
"He left in his grey 4x4 and, although I was badly shaken by what had happened, I never expected to hear any more about it."
But the man went to the police and told them she had spiked his drinks and had sexual intercourse with him without his consent.
The next morning, two police cars arrived at her home at 8am as she was getting her son ready for school.
Six officers piled into her tiny living room and, as her son clutched her legs in fear, she was told she was being arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after administering a date-rape drug.
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At the police station, Ms Hutchison says she was searched and kept in a cell without a toilet for four hours.
"I was shaking with nerves and felt sick but there was nowhere to be sick. Then the questioning began and it seemed to last for ever, although I think it was two hours.
"Five officers made me tell them intimate details such as what positions we'd used while having intercourse.
"I was mortified and felt dirty and ashamed. I couldn't understand why they were treating the man's claim seriously.
"I felt as if I was trapped in a bad dream.
"I can only think that he believed I was going to tell his wife and wanted to get in first with an excuse to cover up our affair.
"It's pathetic. Because of his weakness I've had to suffer in a way no innocent person should."
Ms Hutchison was released on bail.
A few days later, police called at her home to tell her that the man had admitted she was telling the truth.
She has struggled to recover from her ordeal and says she has lost faith in a system that has allowed her accuser to go unpunished for his lies.
She said: "It makes me very angry that he has got off scot-free for making up something so evil about me.
"He was not even cautioned for wasting police time and nobody has apologised to me.
"All I wanted was to trust a man again but I can't imagine myself trusting anyone for a long time."
A Sussex police spokesman said: 'We investigated an allegation of sexual assault against Tanya Hutchison but we can confirm there will be no further action taken."
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Fairly uptight in your world fetboy
News Flash : People like to get drunk and have sex - happens all the time.
Bigger News Flash : Many women like getting drunk
Biggest News Flash : Many women like sex
Still, good of you to caution your boy that he cannot really on you for support if any woman accuses him of anything.
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What strikes me fetboy
Is the extreme passivity of women in your world - they don't get drunk of their own free will, they don't initiate sex and they're not responsible for their own actions.
I meet my wife (15 years ago now), a passionate feminist at a cocktail party. We both got exceedingly drunk and had much enthusiastic sex. If you told her she had been raped she quite possibly would punch your lights out - at the very least angrily lecture you on how wrong it is to trivialise a horrible crime in such a way, not to mention how patronising it is.
This whole "women aren't responsible when drunk" meme strikes me as revoltingly infantilising and suspiciously patriarchal - the removal of womens status as adults for their own good.
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To Blackpaw and anonymous (whom I suspect are the same person)
I am still not moved by your fear mongering. out of all the problems in the world, the last thing I am going to worry about is false accusations. And I still don't see what false accusations have to do with feminism. False accusation are terrible, but both men and women are guilty of them in equal measure. Neither sex has a monopoly on vindictive behavior as that story from UK you posted illustrates.
False accusations are terrible, but they don't make me any less of a progressive or a supporter of the feminist agenda.
One of the reasons why I don't drink or take drugs is that I know it is a lot harder to falsely accuse someone who was not drunk or intoxicated.
Whether or not you were falsely accused is a matter for the courts to decide. Actually I see rapists getting off more times than I hear about cases were false accusations were hurled. In fact you usually hear of the falsely accused getting off. And I have heard of people that got off with a falsely accused defense, only to be convicted later of rape in another case. False accusations are terrible, but DNA evidence doesn't lie. If I am ever on a jury panel in a case in which evidence proves that the woman/girl was incoherently drunk and DNA evidence proves that the guy entered her while she was incoherently drunk, than I am going to vote to send that punk away for a long time.
Accusations in and of themselves will rarely earn convictions in a rape case without physical evidence. In "he said she said" cases, the guy will almost never get convicted unless there is other evidence present; the man's skin under the woman's/girl's fingernails, riped panties, evidence of force entry (physical damage to the woman's/girl's vagina or anus), clear and obvious diagnosis of PTSD for the woman/girl from a nonobjective court appointed psychiatrist, and etc. In "he said she said" cases where no other evidence is present, it is pretty easy to figure out if the accusation is false, and if it's not so easy to figure out if the accusation is genuine or not, the jury will almost always side with the defense.
I worry about a lot of things (such as rising health care cost, rising higher education cost, my nation's dependence on foreign oil, the war in Iraq lasted much longer), but being convicted by a false accusation of sexual misconduct is not one of them.
One point you left out is that is easy to launch a civil suit against someone who has been found to have falsely accused you.