We often cover the problem of false allegations on my blog, and recently Joshua, a reader, told me that as a teenager he had been falsely accused of molesting his next door neighbor’s kids. I asked him to tell us his story, and this is what he wrote:
Joshua’s Story
Back when I was a teenager I was falsely accused of molesting 2 kids I was babysitting at the time. One was a little girl; the other was a little boy.
I had babysat these two kids for a couple of years, as they lived next door. I would babysit them on average once a week after school until their mother returned home from work. I was known to be really good with kids even as a teenage boy.
Anyways, the situation started one day when I was sitting in my room and I heard my mother calling me from the front-door. As usual if my mother was calling me from another part of the house it was probably to give me trouble for something I did, telling me it was supper, or do chores. I never expected what happened next.
When I got to the top of the steps going down to the front door, my mother said I have something to ask you. I was like, “Okay what?”
“The neighbor tells me that you molested their kids. They say that their niece said that their daughter told their niece you had touched them in places you shouldn’t be.”
I was like, “What? I didn’t touch those kids? Why would I do something like that?†As it happened quite a few years ago I can’t particularly remember every detail of the conversation that came about and how I reacted but I remember being completely stunned. Then I remember my mother almost crying and then finally saying that she believed me.
This girl was also new to my high school at the time so I had just met her at school and found out she was related to the kids next door.
So I didn’t think much of it, until I went to school the next day. All of a sudden I could hear her telling the people at school that I molested her niece and nephew. I couldn’t believe how horrible I felt about someone saying that about me. I had my own troubles in my life with drugs and school; now I was being accused of molesting kids and now everyone in school was going to know.
I remember being in science class and her discussing this with the “popular kids†in school. (more…)
|
