There is absolutely nothing that can prepare a mother for the shock at finding out that your son has been arrested for rape. Adam was a quiet lad, hard working and caring. He had his scrapes with the law, much the same as many other young men, he had lost his driving licence through drink/drug driving twice and had an assault charge in his early 20’s which almost saw him jailed, at that time.
Adam had done well academically and enjoyed a successful career in horticulture which enabled him to move to Manchester and start a life there which I hoped would find him settle down and perhaps even start a family one day.
I was just leaving work when Adam called and told me that we needed to have a facetime chat as there was something profoundly serious that we needed to discuss. The 30-minute drive home was agonising as I knew that it must be something really bad as Adam wasn’t particularly one for drama. I called him the minute I got in and as soon as he popped up on the screen, I knew that what he was about to say would be devastating, he had clearly been crying and looked very unwell. He came straight out with it ‘Mum I’ve been arrested for raping a girl who I had sex with a few nights ago’ my heart stopped beating…
He regaled the story which had found him in police custody for the past 13 hours and reiterated repeatedly that he had done nothing wrong. After half an hour I had heard enough and told him that he was no son of mine and closed the app without even saying goodbye. The tears came immediately, and I was still sobbing when my Adam’s dad arrived home an hour later, getting those words, which he had told me, to leave my lips seemed impossible. My Adam, my son, and the word “rape” in the same sentence…impossible? I managed to give his father a brief summary of what had happened and left it to him to contact Adam and discuss it further. So as not to cause me further distress he made the call in his car and to this day I have no idea about the content and I don’t want to but the strong bond and relationship which they had always shared, ended on that day.
It took me days to acknowledge what had happened mostly because he had been in what seemed to be a strong relationship with an albeit significantly older woman but one who I had a good relationship with and who seemed to deeply care for him. It was not her who had claimed to have been raped by him, he had gone to another womans home on a “tinder date” and had sex with a person that he had never met before. A one-night stand, what the hell was he playing at? I spoke with his partner, and she disclosed that she had known about what he was doing and was fine about it, “wait, what? You went along with it?” I soon realised though that their personal lives had nothing to do with me and that Adam needed my support, so I contacted him, and he came home to sit down and fully discuss what was going to happen.
Adam and his partner continued their relationship, I will always love her for that because I certainly wouldn’t have been as forgiving. Adam was charged and given a committal to crown court date 8 months away and it would be heard in the town where the alleged assault took place, some 150 miles from my home, shortly before Christmas. We rarely spoke about the upcoming trial during this time and Adam seemed confident that a jury would find him not guilty as he had done nothing to warrant any allegations of wrongdoing. In the weeks running up to the trial I was fraught with anxiety and the thought of attending court sickened me but he was my son so I would dutifully attend, and his partner also did so. Hearing the statements read out in court and watching both the complainant and Adam being cross examined will haunt me forever. Each and every word felt like slaps to my face. Sitting opposite 12 people who would determine his guilt or innocence was excruciating. I found myself willing to see through the girls’ lies and allow my son to return to his life unflawed by this experience. On occasion I locked eyes with a couple of them, I will never know if it was due to this that an accusation was made against me that I had been using my mobile phone in the courtroom and I was barred from any further sessions. It wasn’t worth driving all the way to court and back to sit outside the courthouse, so I sat and waited on the last day of his trial alone at home anxiously waiting for Adam to call and tell me that he had been found innocent. That call never came, instead his partner called to inform me that the verdict was guilty and that he had been remanded into immediate custody. My entire world shattered.
I couldn’t bring myself to even reply to his partner and hung up on her as she sobbed down the phone – I am sorry for doing that and will always be. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her the following day when she called asking what she was to do with his clothes and car that were at her home and it fell to her to make the arrangements in order to hand over his clothing and attend the first visit which he would have, whilst imprisoned. Adam wasn’t given a sentence at the time of his incarceration so none of us knew how long he could be in prison for we found this out 8 weeks later and he was handed a 7-year sentence which absolutely floored me. My boy would miss 7 birthdays, 7 Christmases, not just his but mine, his fathers, his nieces and nephews. His nanna wasn’t in the best of health, and I recoiled in horror at the thought of him never seeing her alive again as prison was not anywhere that I could ever imagine her visiting. Over the following days I began to absorb the shock and tried my best to ignore the news stories which littered social media calling my boy a monster and a rapist. The police photo which was used was awful my boy didn’t look like that person, where was his smile and shining eyes – that person did look like someone capable of rape and worse.
I still don’t know where I found the strength to attend that first visit but I can assure you that it is nowhere near as bad as what you expect. The officers are pleasant enough and there are refreshments on sale, you are allowed to hold hands, embrace, and kiss your loved one, at least at the prisons where Adam was anyway. He served 3 and ½ years in prison and was allowed to serve the remainder under licence conditions in the community and after 6 months was permitted to come and live back at home with me and his father. The relationship with his partner ended 18 months after he was released from prison.