University Student Accused of Rape - Police Drop Case

Case study summary

Our client was a university student who was arrested for rape despite there being no formal complaint from the complainant. We reviewed the police's investigation and took pro-active steps to ensure that the case was resolved as soon as possible and did not effect his studies.

Case study

Our client was an 18-year-old university student who met the complainant, another fellow student, through mutual friends on a night out. They got along well and shared a kiss in the nightclub. The complainant invited our client back to her student accommodation where they had consensual sexual intercourse. The following evening, the complainant went to the hospital because she could not recall the events of the previous night at the time and she had found blood on her bed. The nurses who were attending to the complainant called the police to raise their concerns regarding the blood and our complainant's lack of memory and our client was arrested. He and his family feared for what consequences such an allegation could have on his bright future.

Our client was represented by a duty solicitor at his police interview and released on bail. He and his parents were not impressed with how the case was progressing. They struggled to obtain regular updates from their solicitor and they did not think that they were being pro-active. After seeing our reviews online and reading case studies from our website which related to his case, our client decided to instruct us.

We immediately obtained an update from the officer in charge of the case and obtained the case papers from our client's previous solicitor. We reviewed the papers and established that the complainant had not filed a complaint. The original report appeared to have originated from the nurses who treated the complainant despite her not supporting the allegation. With this important piece of information, we aimed to persuade the police to close the case as soon as possible because it was important for our client that he returned to university without such a serious sexual allegation hanging over his head.

The police disclosure stated that the police were relying on evidence such as CCTV footage of the complainant and our client in the nightclub, telephone evidence and forensic evidence. We analysed the strength of this evidence against our client's instructions and we also spoke to our client's family and friends who provided helpful information about his character. They all confirmed that the police investigation had come as a shock to them. We then drafted representations which aimed to persuade the officer in charge to close the case.

The officer in charge of the case decided to take no further action in August 2023, just in time for our client to return to his second year of university. Our client and his parents were extremely relieved.