No Further Action Taken Against Client Accused of Rape

Case study summary

Our client was arrested following an allegation of rape made by his housemate and he approached our firm after his first interview under caution. We provided expert legal advice and drafted a prepared statement which ultimately led to the police taking No Further Action.

Case study

Our client was a university student who had been accused of rape by his housemate. He denied the allegation but he was, understandably, very nervous following his arrest and concerned that the police might come to his address at any moment and arrest him again. Following his first interview under caution, he approached our firm for support and assistance with the case.

We immediately began preparing our client's case. He had answered 'no comment' to all questions put to him in his first interview and so, we initially obtained detailed instructions from him. We then reviewed the instructions and carefully prepared a clear statement which confirmed our client's instructions: that he was innocent. Following this, we maintained close contact with him throughout the lengthy investigation period and provided advice as and when needed in order to best support him.

Eventually, the investigating officer indicated that she wanted to interview our client again and that she intended to arrest him in order to carry out this interview. We immediately saw that there was no justification for this arrest and wrote to the officer to question to criticise this decision. In particular, given the concerns that our client had about being arrested and being placed into a police cell again, we were conscious that an arrest would have been especially harmful for him and wanted to ensure that this was avoided at all costs. We successfully persuaded the investigating officer that she in fact did not have a good reason to arrest our client and arrangements were made for him to attend the police station voluntarily.

At our client's second interview, new material was presented to him and we carefully assessed it before drafting a second prepared statement which, again, emphasised our client's innocence. The investigation then continued and we considered whether we should serve anything further to the police. We reviewed our options and advised our client as to our suggested approach. Some months later, it transpired that our advice was successful as the police confirmed that they would be taking No Further Action against our client.

After almost one and a half years of being under police investigation, our client was relieved and thankful to see the end of the case. Being a university student, he was looking forward to being able to focus on his exams and finish his studies.