We often cover the problem of false allegations on my blog, and recently Joshua, a reader, told me that as a teenager he had been falsely accused of molesting his next door neighbor's kids. I asked him to tell us his story, and this is what he wrote:

Joshua's Story

Back when I was a teenager I was falsely accused of molesting 2 kids I was babysitting at the time. One was a little girl; the other was a little boy.

I had babysat these two kids for a couple of years, as they lived next door. I would babysit them on average once a week after school until their mother returned home from work. I was known to be really good with kids even as a teenage boy.

Anyways, the situation started one day when I was sitting in my room and I heard my mother calling me from the front-door. As usual if my mother was calling me from another part of the house it was probably to give me trouble for something I did, telling me it was supper, or do chores. I never expected what happened next.

When I got to the top of the steps going down to the front door, my mother said I have something to ask you. I was like, "Okay what?"

"The neighbor tells me that you molested their kids. They say that their niece said that their daughter told their niece you had touched them in places you shouldn’t be."

I was like, “What? I didn’t touch those kids? Why would I do something like that?” As it happened quite a few years ago I can’t particularly remember every detail of the conversation that came about and how I reacted but I remember being completely stunned. Then I remember my mother almost crying and then finally saying that she believed me.

This girl was also new to my high school at the time so I had just met her at school and found out she was related to the kids next door.

So I didn’t think much of it, until I went to school the next day. All of a sudden I could hear her telling the people at school that I molested her niece and nephew. I couldn’t believe how horrible I felt about someone saying that about me. I had my own troubles in my life with drugs and school; now I was being accused of molesting kids and now everyone in school was going to know.

I remember being in science class and her discussing this with the “popular kids” in school. I remember overhearing it and then keeping it bottled up inside until after class when I went to my teacher (who was fairly new to teaching) and crying about how this girl was telling people these vicious lies about me. I remember not knowing why this was happening to me and why someone would do this to me. I look back on it now and know why but that’s for another debate.

I remember my teacher consoling me and just listening. She didn’t seem to have judged me but who knows, at least she didn’t make it evident.

I came home the end of that day to my mother talking about it, and the cops outside the neighbors’ house. It seems that when it finally went further, the “accuser” confessed to lying about it because she was jealous that I was babysitting her niece and nephew and not her. They had to withdraw her from school and from what I heard they had committed her for depression. My guess is, they made her go see a counselor and moved her to another family members place in a different city. All I know is I have never seen her again.

The next part was to go to school and face everyone. The best part was the moment they found out that she was no longer with the school everything returned to normal.  They found out what had happened. Although, I’ll admit even I don’t know if anything was said behind closed doors but no one ever gave me any form of nickname.

I never got asked to babysit after that, and they started asking another person. They always said “I was too old and you’d probably want to do something else” when I asked why I wasn’t asked. Funny it happened right after that.

The interesting thing that happened was a year later I was confronted by that same teacher for “picking on” another student. She said to me, “You remember that time someone said something about you that wasn’t true? Why are you making fun of this person for something that isn’t true?” If my memory serves me correct it was about the person’s hygiene.

She basically minimized me being falsely accused vs. someone being picked on in high school.

Thankfully the story was bitter sweet but the end result isn't. To this day, approximately 14 years later, I am still affected by what had happened.

I no longer feel comfortable around small children. I have a hard time showing affection to them. That fear of the past always creeps up when I try and show affection. I think, "What if someone judges me for accepting a 'kiss' from my niece or nephews?" Instead I confine it to a high five.

But I’ll admit that’s nothing in comparison to how I feel with my daughter. My daughter is a year and about 5 months right now. I find it very difficult to be involved giving her baths, changing her (although at this point I still do it continually) and I find I even think twice about the way I show affection to her in public. I honestly believe that what happened to me when I was younger made me realize that just any person can “accuse” someone of anything without any evidence whatsoever. Instead I felt that I have to protect myself by making sure people can see I’m “standoffish” and not affectionate other than “stories” they hear about how I am with my wife.

To this day my wife still doesn’t know about what happened to me in high school but she always questions why I feel “uncomfortable” with my daughter when it comes to bath time. I just simply tell her I’m uncomfortable and don’t know why, I just am.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm and is filed under False Accusations. You can trackback from your own site.