Malicious complaint re alleged abuse of a vulnerable adult

pphillips

PHILANTHROPIST wrote: »

Easy to say. Difficult to achieve in practice. Charity has a prima facie defence of qualified privilege. My friend is penniless. Would you risk say £3-4K on a defamation claim in the county court even if it had a modest chance of success ?

Qualified privilege only applies to slander that is not malicious. If she has a prima facie case then ideally she should try to settle the case out of court.

PHILANTHROPIST

elsien wrote: »

Historically abuse of vulnerable adults has been allowed to continue because they can make unreliable witnesses in a formal setting - cases do not go to court because people have memory issues, for example, and are unable to clearly remember the date or time of an incident even when they are very clear as to what happened and who by. I'm not sure how you'd manage the sort of independent hearing you are considering while still giving people the protection they need.

If your friend had been accused of theft from the charity rather than a safeguarding allegation, then the employment law situation would have been exactly the same, and there would not be the opportunity to have the outcome decided by a truly independent party. And he may still have ended being put forward for the DBS barring list.
I'm not trying to dismiss what your friend is going through. But it comes across that you're on a little bit of a crusade that's not necessarily going to get him anywhere at the moment.
You weren't there. You didn't see what happened. He may be telling the truth and be completely innocent. He may not. Or it may be closer to the gray area somewhere in between. If he has good legal advice, he would be better following that.

Thanks again.

Fact is you do not know the background which led to the false accusations and an open forum is not the place to detail such background information.

As stated above we are going to see Counsel this week and that will be of assistance.

I thank you and other members for their feedback and will report back when my friend's name has been cleared. Of that I am extremely confident, with or without a crusade lol

chesky

You actually said 'my friend is in receipt of good advice re

chesky

Sorry, posted too early... Hand slip. But the point is made that you actually did not say they had a lawyer, people can think they're getting good advice from all kinds of unreliable sources.

PHILANTHROPIST

chesky wrote: »

Sorry, posted too early... Hand slip. But the point is made that you actually did not say they had a lawyer, people can think they're getting good advice from all kinds of unreliable sources.

I agree. Anyhow, when I get more info, principally from Counsel, will report back.