July 2012
Dear Mikki,
Thought I'd better tell you the latest news, poor John Williams, you remember him, taught woodwork, very quiet. Well some horrid girl accused him of sexual abuse. No one believed her but he was suspended, and interviewed by the police several times. He had a terrible time, couldn't go out of the house without being shouted at or spat at. The children came home from school crying because the other kids were calling them names and saying their dad was a perve. They were so scared to go to school they had to have a home tutor. Brenda has lost her job, she was a mealtime assistant, the head was very sorry but well 'you couldn't be too careful.' They couldn't afford to pay a solicitor so they had to resort to Legal Aid. Everyone was very supportive at first but as time went on, little niggles of doubt began to creep in. I sometimes found myself looking at him and thinking, could you? Then, no he couldn't.
The nightmare has been going on for several months now, and it's got worse. The police found that it's not the first time. He's been accused before, we don't know the details, but it happened in Basingstoke. John is so shocked by it he became a different person, didn't want to see anyone, wouldn't go out, just sat watching TV all day. Brenda was distraught, she couldn't get through to him. She dared not go out, she didn't like to leave him alone, she was frightened of what he might do. She was brilliant at sticking up for him but she admitted to me once that even she sometimes wondered, the evidence seemed so positive. Then, an ex junior school teacher who knew the girl remembered she had pulled the same stunt before. Finally the girl admitted she had made the whole thing up to punish him for giving her a detention. Whew, that was a great relief, but there was still the problem of the Basingstoke case. John denied it of course and swore he'd never been there. Then luckily the new solicitor dug into the file at Basingstoke and found the man accused there was a 65 year old from Bristol who happened to have the same name.
You'd think that was the end of it but no, although proved to be completely innocent John was still completely shattered, people still avoided him and made whispered comments when they saw him. He couldn't bring himself to go back to school. They've put the house on the market and hope to make a new start somewhere far away from here. The girl incident was terrible but the mistaken identity was just the last straw.