Falsely accused - sorry it's long

Natty68

Has anyone had this happen or been falsely accused of anything?

Last week I was called into a meeting at my place of work where I do my volunteering at a therapy unit, to see my line manager and superior. Obviously I was thinking all sorts of things but nothing to what I was accused of. Yes you read that right, accused.

I was asked to sit down and they proceeded to inform me that I had been accused of showing photos of myself in states of undress to someone at my place of work running a red light and nearly crashing the car. Well obviously this is total fabrication on someone there. I would never do anything like what I have been accused of.

For a start I would never run a red light, least of with people in my care in the car. And very nearly crashing the car; I have always been in control of the car – it is more than my jobs worth. I am not responsible for other drivers. I have always checked my passengers have been all right. I never reported these idiotic drivers to the staff at my place of work – why should I have? I would be continuing telling them about these drivers.. The crash I think someone has mentioned is the one that happened to ANOTHER DRIVER outside a car park exit a few months ago. Someone (NOT ME) was coming out of the exit, I had let them out while I was in the queue for the traffic lights, and literally out of nowhere a car came hurtling down the road and smashed straight into this other car on the right front side. This person didn’t hang around they literally just drove off. Although the car that had been hit followed it and that was that. So no more was done. I remember telling my passengers the next day that I had seen my first hit and run. But that it was nothing to do with me, I just witnessed it. Maybe that was the crash they thought of.

Now onto the allegations of showing photos. They are not true and I never would do that at all to anyone, let alone to anyone in my care. To say I was horrified and sick to my stomach is an understatement. I then got angry and felt I was being judged already as well as being found guilty. I said they were making out I was a sexual predator – which I am definitely NOT. I was abused as a kid why would I do something like that to someone else.

All they kept saying was a state of undress but couldn’t elaborate how, which I do feel suspicious. To me that says they don’t know, ergo the other person is lying.

Why would they get in the car after I had allegedly done this? Why not immediately report it? Why carry on getting in the car if I made them feel unsafe? And why only say it after I had gone in to my place of work the previous day for a meeting and had seen me in the building? Why then – I had been off 3 weeks they could say anytime during that 3 weeks, not conveniently the last few days before I finish my holiday. And why can’t they say when it happened? Yes I have show pics – of my cats and dog, and the meals I have prepared. One even asked for a copy of the receipe which I did send a link to, which I not know I shouldn’t have done and was silly of me.

I don’t understand why they would say I showed pictures of me in various states of undress – what does that actually mean for gods sake? Did I intentionally show these pictures to whoever, what state of undress did it show, did it show it was me in the alleged photo – what photos? I have gone through my phone and there are no photos that would even construe this…

Why say I would do this, what do they gain apart from ruining not only my life.. All because someone wants to hurt me, or think it is funny to do this, or is a fantasist and wants the attention.

I seriously can’t believe this is happening. Why would they do it? I hate it, I mean I’m not like that , this isn’t me – I ve gone through abuse etc when I was young why would I even do it as an adult?

Thankfully I have friends that don’t believe this story, and can’t believe someone would say this about me, and are really concerned about me, and disgusted that someone could say this. And are sticking by me , one even went as far as ringing my place of work to see what support they were offering me. Not just for the accuser as it totally destroys my life. The accuser gets all the support every day of my workplace in groups etc, I don’t.

I will be quitting volunteering after this is all sorted as I cannot go in and do my job, this will forever be hanging over even when I am found to be innocent. What is that saying “mud sticks” or “no smoke without fire”

Now it’s a waiting game until the phone call next week to advise my meeting.

This feels like it’s a dream and I’m going to wake up any minute. Why would someone do this?

It is with vulnerable adults, those with BPD and is at my old theraputic community where i have not long completed my own therapy.

I have requested evidence/proof and times etc to back up these accusations. And unfortunately because it is a voluntary basis I am not a member of any union.

Would I be in my right to persue a claim against this unit/person where I used to drive for them.

FtbDreaming

Horrible people do this. I know somebody wjo had something similar, there was nothing they could do to disprove the lies and exaggerations. Just walked away then on top got named and shamed in the local paper despite there never being any crime happening, just made to sound like a weirdo.

Just hold your head high and know in your heart that you're in the right. There are seriously twisted peoole out there that would say things others wouldnt dream of in order to destroy a persons reputation.

Thomas_The_Tank_Top

If I were you Natty. I would go and do something far more rewarding than trying to help people.

Help out an animal sanctuary. That will make you feel a lot better. Animals don't 5hit on you.

Comms69

Thomas_The_Tank_Top wrote: »

If I were you Natty. I would go and do something far more rewarding than trying to help people.

Help out an animal sanctuary. That will make you feel a lot better. Animals don't 5hit on you.

Except pigeons

TBagpuss

It sounds as though you work / volunteer with vulnerable people and your wmployer most likelyhas an obligation to investigate any concerns which are raised with them.

Of course it is distressing when someone makes accustations but I think you need to separate out what the person making the complaint is doing (making an accustation agsint you)and what the employer is doing (investigating and giving you the chance to respond)

It sounds as thouh you were very upset (natuarally) but it would be sensible to think about what you actually said in the meeting, and if necessary then speak to them again if you feel that you did not give them all of the relevant information.

For instnace:
- Did you tell them that you had recently *witnessed* an accident when you had service users in the car?
- Did you tell them that you had *spoken about witnessing* an accident when speaking to service users?

Did you say that you have never shown anyone photos of th type they are alleging?

It may be that somone has made malicious allegations - there are nasty people around.

It may be that someone has misunderstood something.
With regard to the 'nearly crashed the car' - people's perception of how others drive can vary hugely and things can lok very different from diferent seats in the car - someting can feel much closer to the passenger in an unfamilar car than it really is, for instance, and 'running a red light' may be that youwent through just before the light changed (again, someone sitting in the back may well not have seen the light until you were partially across the junction)
I thin k with that all you can say is that ou have nt run a red light and haven't had any near missesand that without more information abotu the timing and location of the incident you can't really comment further.

It is distressing, but try to see it as them doing their due diliganc to investigate any allegations made, however unlikely they may seem, to meet their obligation to safeguard their service users.

annandale

You’re a volunteer. You can quit any time. This doesn’t need to ruin your life. You don’t have to go to the meeting. You could get in touch with citizens advice and you could phone ACAS for some advice as well.

Blatchford

Now I know that I have read this on another site already, some days ago. I just can't recall where.

As you have already been told, you volunteer to work with vulnerable people, and therefore any allegation of this type, true or not, needs to be properly investigated. The unit are doing their job and treating this as a safeguarding issue in order to properly protect you and themselves from allegations of improper conduct. They have policies and procedures that they must follow, it is in your interests that they follow them, and in order to clear your name they must follow them. As you have already been told. So no, you cannot sue them for doing their job properly.

If you wish to consider suing the person involved, assuming you know who it is and that that person is deemed capable in law (given that these are vulnerable people, there may be a question about that), I hope you have very deep pockets for the legal bills and court costs of pursuing someone who almost certainly has no money because if they had the money I doubt they would be depending on the services of a volunteer driver. I believe the deposit for the court case will be in the region of £10,000 for a defamation hearing.

I am afraid that if you are going to get upset and angry about a service taking their safeguarding duties seriously, and can't understand why this is necessary... and if you do not understand that many vulnerable people may become confused or act in unexpected ways, then you are quite correct - you should give up volunteering because you are unsuited to work with such groups of people and the services that support them. This is not all about you. Your life is not ruined by anything other than your complete over-reaction to something that is simply random and mildly inconvenient to you.

Manxman_in_exile

I'm assuming you work as a volunteer driver for a mental health trust?


It's not entirely clear to me who has made the allegations against you. At first you refer to "someone at my place of work", which I would take to be a colleague, but then it becomes unclear as to whether it may be a service user who was a passenger in your car.


If it is a service user then, as mentioned by an earlier poster, the trust will be under an obligation to take the allegation seriously and to investigate it properly. Make sure before you attend any meeting that you have some sort of description of what actually happened (if anything did happen). Stick to facts that you know. If it's at all possible that a service user may have misinterpreted or misunderstood something that you can recall, point this out. If something appears to you to be entirely impossible - point this out in a calm and collected manner. If you are a volunteer driver ferrying around mental health service users, the trust will want to see that you are calm, cool and reliable.


As a former NHS MH trust manager I appreciate how important volunteers (especially former service users themselves) can be to the effective working of a service. However, assuming that this all blows over, I would advise you in future not to become "too" friendly with the service users you are assisting. By all means engage in everyday conversation etc with them, but no way would I be showing them any personal photos or having conversations with them about my personal life (except insofar as I could present myself as an example that the service works).


So, the trust will be obliged to investigate the allegation and all you can do is present your explanation of what did, or did not happen. And it's important that you do so calmly and dispassionately.


This is just a suggestion, but it might be worth trying to recall if you have had any particular differences with any particular service user.

[Deleted User]

Blatchford wrote: »

if you do not understand that many vulnerable people may become confused or act in unexpected ways, then you are quite correct - you should give up volunteering because you are unsuited to work with such groups of people and the services that support them. This is not all about you. Your life is not ruined by anything other than your complete over-reaction to something that is simply random and mildly inconvenient to you.

It's little harsh to call the accusations "mildly inconvenient" to the OP, I think.
I fully imagine the investigation will find no case for the OP to answer due to lack of evidence. However, the effect on the OP of such random untruths being bandied about is obviously considerable or he/she would not be posting about it here.

Since the OP has already decided to give up the volunteer post, it only remains for her to decide whether to attend the meeting or not. I do agree that the OP has little to fear about her future reputation as long as there is no foundation to the allegations...

Manxman_in_exile

Blatchford wrote: »

Now I know that I have read this on another site already, some days ago. I just can't recall where.

As you have already been told, you volunteer to work with vulnerable people, and therefore any allegation of this type, true or not, needs to be properly investigated. The unit are doing their job and treating this as a safeguarding issue in order to properly protect you and themselves from allegations of improper conduct. They have policies and procedures that they must follow, it is in your interests that they follow them, and in order to clear your name they must follow them. As you have already been told. So no, you cannot sue them for doing their job properly.

If you wish to consider suing the person involved, assuming you know who it is and that that person is deemed capable in law (given that these are vulnerable people, there may be a question about that), I hope you have very deep pockets for the legal bills and court costs of pursuing someone who almost certainly has no money because if they had the money I doubt they would be depending on the services of a volunteer driver. I believe the deposit for the court case will be in the region of £10,000 for a defamation hearing.

I am afraid that if you are going to get upset and angry about a service taking their safeguarding duties seriously, and can't understand why this is necessary... and if you do not understand that many vulnerable people may become confused or act in unexpected ways, then you are quite correct - you should give up volunteering because you are unsuited to work with such groups of people and the services that support them. This is not all about you. Your life is not ruined by anything other than your complete over-reaction to something that is simply random and mildly inconvenient to you.

I know what you are trying to say, but I think you may be being a bit harsh in saying the OP has over-reacted. If they are a former service user they might well be more vulnerable and fragile than most other people.


I take your point about services being able to use volunteers who are reliable and resilient, but the truth is that many NHS MH services do rely to some extent on volunteers and more often that not those volunteers are former service users. Whether former service users are suitable as volunteers may be debatable - many clinicians would say they are better placed to be volunteers. Unfortunately, MH services are not exactly overflowing with people wanting to be volunteers.

Blatchford

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

I know what you are trying to say, but I think you may be being a bit harsh in saying the OP has over-reacted. If they are a former service user they might well be more vulnerable and fragile than most other people.


I take your point about services being able to use volunteers who are reliable and resilient, but the truth is that many NHS MH services do rely to some extent on volunteers and more often that not those volunteers are former service users. Whether former service users are suitable as volunteers may be debatable - many clinicians would say they are better placed to be volunteers. Unfortunately, MH services are not exactly overflowing with people wanting to be volunteers.

I would agree if the poster hadn't posted all of this (well this time they left out the bit about how their partner would have to resign from their employment and from the governors body they are on) and already been told that this was normal, routine and, well everything else that's been said plus more, last week when they posted elsewhere. At this stage repeating it all again is really overkill - they've been reassured and told over and over that this is normal procedure and protects them.

I am not sure where you got the bit about them being a former service user from, and maybe they are. But according to their post they are also a survivor of abuse as a child, and so I would have hoped that instead of lashing out at an organisation taking it's responsibilities seriously and wanting to sue them, they'd have understood why it is so very important. If someone had been taking their responsibilities to the OP seriously when they were a child, then they might not have been a victim of abuse.

I do understand that it might be a bit upsetting, but surely after it has been explained at great length already, they didn't need to start it all over again, word for word?