Normally I'd contact a lawyer myself, but I live in the US and don't know much about UK laws. My friend who is a trans woman was sexually assaulted three times by the same person--once without her finding out until later because she was unconscious when it happened, a second time when she was knocked out by the assaulter, and more recently, a third time, when the assaulter had her at knife point. Thankfully she was able to press a panic button on her phone to contact some of her local friends who were able to pull the assaulter off of her, and she has since reported the incident to the police. However, the assaulter also reported my friend for the crime the assaulter committed, and because my friend is a trans woman (and the assaulter is a woman who is not trans) she thinks that she may be arrested for the thing that was done to her. Is there anything she can do to prevent a wrongful imprisonment? She told me that if she gets arrested she'll kill herself in prison, and neither our friends nor myself want that to happen.As I was writing this, my trans friend told me that the woman who sexually assaulted her has recently gone into hiding to deter the police from tracking her down. Now my trans friend believes she will be the one to be arrested because she is easier for the police to find. On top of that, the sexual assaulter spoofed her location to my trans friend’s apartment, which means the police will likely find my trans friend first and arrest her rather than the sexual assaulter, simply due to ease of access.
EDIT: She is in England.
CONTEXT ||tw: sexual assault, suicide, depression
Just a heads up, this gets VERY dark to a point where you'd almost think an edgy teen wrote a fanfic. But no, this is actually happening and I am just losing more and more faith in humanity by the day.
There's an entire mess of unfortunate events that have happened to my friend over the last several weeks, which lead up to her nearly committing suicide. Her close family friends who saved her from her most recent suicide attempt have since died themselves, one due to online harassment causing her to jump from a 12 story balcony and the other due to an overdose, because she lost her sister (the one who jumped).
My trans friend (TF) had already been going through a lot before she was assaulted the first time (of three). Initially, after her father committed suicide, she jumped off the balcony of her apartment. She survived, but was knocked unconscious. According to TF, she woke up at her neighbor's (SA) apartment, and was told that she had been nursed until she came to. She obviously had no memory between the time she jumped and the time she woke up.
My other friend (NB) pulled me into a group call with TF after the incident because TF was talking about making a second suicide attempt. We thought the talk went well, as she had resolved to thank SA for nursing her after she jumped (none of us knew she had been assaulted yet) and we were glad that she seemed somewhat more stable. TF actually took things a step further and asked SA on a date (which at the time seemed like a good idea because, again, at the time we didn't know SA had assaulted her) which went well, until they got to TF’s apartment and SA knocked her out with a punch and sexually assaulted her a second time. (We initially thought this was the first time.)
The next day, TF was attacked by an unknown assailant with a baseball bat. We assume it was either SA or SA’s older sister, but it could have also been a random stranger.
A few days later, we got a message from TF’s account in the group chat saying that TF was missing. Her family friend, J, reported to us that TF had been missing for two days and despite their best efforts, could not find her. NB and I helped J and her sister (E) track her down through her phone, and eventually E was able to pick up TF from the cliff in her car.
It was once TF got back in the call with us that we found out that SA was pregnant. Which didn’t make sense at first, since we thought that the first assault had only been a few days prior. We figured out that the first assault had actually been 2 weeks prior, when TF had jumped off of the apartment balcony. She had been sexually assaulted by SA while she was unconscious.
A few days later, we got news from TF that E had been harassed online for so long that she ended up jumping from a 12 story building. She had initially survived but was in a coma for several hours, then eventually her heart stopped while she was in the hospital. The next day, J overdosed on something (I haven’t been told what it was) because her sister died.
At this point I’m starting to wonder if the entirety of the UK needs an exorcism.
After those incidents, things were relatively calm on my end, and I didn’t hear much from TF, until today, when she messaged me to tell me about the third assault. SA had pinned her down by knifepoint to sexually assault her, and TF had to press the panic button on her phone to call for her local friends to save her. They had to pull SA off of TF.
TF has since reported the incident to the police, however SA accused TF of assault instead. Because it was one person’s word against another, each had a 50/50 chance of being arrested, based on the police’s decision.
However, SA has recently gone into hiding to deter the police from tracking her down. Now TF believes she will be the one to be arrested because she is easier for the police to find. On top of that, SA spoofed her location to TF’s apartment, which means the police will likely find TF first and arrest her rather than SA, simply due to ease of access.
