On The 31st Of January 2016, This Man Was Accused Of Rape… It Took One Afternoon To Ruin His Life. And Two Years To Clear His Name

- Jennifer Savin

It was a quiet knock at the door, late afternoon in January 2016, that changed Liam Allan’s life. “There was no EastEnders-style showdown,” he explains, eerily matter-of-fact and with the tired resignation of someone who has repeated this particular story a hundred times before. “It was almost casual.” Liam had just returned home from football practice and was in a dressing gown when the police called. “I thought perhaps I’d witnessed a crime,” he says softly. It was only when Liam was in the back of the police car and an officer pulled out a notepad, from which he began to read a series of allegations made against him by an ex-girlfriend, that he realised this wasn’t the case. Instead it appeared that he was the one who had committed a crime. And it was one of the most heinous imaginable: rape. As the police officer’s words settled in, he remembers that it seemed strange, as the relationship had ended on good terms, he had thought. At the time, Liam was a criminology and criminal psychology student, and assumed the legal system would work correctly. He’d be able to chalk this up to one unpleasant afternoon and move on with his life. His duty solicitor agreed: “He told me, ‘I’ve seen loads of [cases involving accusations like] these and they’re rarely taken further’.” Except both men were wrong. On every count.