Eleanor de Freitas should never have been charged, police say
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Version 0 of 1. Police who investigated a rape complaint from a woman who went on to kill herself, after being accused of lying by prosecutors, maintain she should never have been charged with perverting the course of justice. The specialist sex-crime officers who investigated the rape complaint made by Eleanor de Freitas, 23, consistently refused to support prosecutors in a case against her for allegedly making up the allegations. They were supported by their senior officer, but overruled by Martin Hewitt, an assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police after lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service held a meeting with him. The case was initially brought by the woman’s alleged rapist in a private prosecution, but was then taken on by the CPS and brought to trial in April this year. De Freitas killed herself three days before the trial was due to begin. Correspondence seen by the Guardian reveals that the detectives – who carried out a specialist interview with De Freitas – maintain she should not have been charged. The CPS only received police cooperation after demanding a meeting with Hewitt, the senior officer. In a letter this month, DI Julian King, of Sapphire, the sexual offences investigation unit, said: “I stand by my decision in that I do not believe that Eleanor should ever have been prosecuted for PCJ [perverting the course of justice].” On Tuesday, Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, vigorously defended the decision to prosecute De Freitas, a woman who had bipolar disorder and had been sectioned in a mental health unit in the past, saying it was a unique and tragic case. After personally looking into the prosecution, Saunders said the evidential and public interest tests were both met, and the evidence against the young woman was strong. She said she had expressed her personal and heartfelt sympathies to the woman’s family, but defended the actions of the CPS and said it was better for the authorities to take on a private prosecution that met the tests than to leave it to a private prosecutor. Saunders said the case involved careful consideration because De Freitas had mental health problems, but also because it was the subject of a private prosecution without a full police investigation. She dismissed the concerns of police officers about pursuing De Freitas for allegedly making up the complaint. She said the police were not in a position to give a view, as they “never undertook an investigation into the alleged perverting the course of justice nor did they consider all the material provided to us by the private prosecution”. But De Freitas’s father, David, said CPS lawyers had never met or interviewed his daughter about her allegations – and that perhaps explained the discrepancy between their view and that of the rape investigators. He said: “We are disappointed that even in light of the subsequent tragedy, the DPP is digging her heels in and standing by this prosecution. We are disappointed that she does not acknowledge there are lessons to be learnt from what happened to Eleanor. “The failure to take on lessons has disastrous implications for trust in the Crown Prosecution Service if they are concerned about encouraging rape victims to come forward. I spoke out in the first place because I was concerned that other vulnerable women and their families should not go through what we have been through.” The director of public prosecutions said that she was satisfied that her lawyers had taken the necessary steps to assure themselves De Freitas’s mental health problems had been properly considered. She said medical experts provided by De Freitas’s legal team found that she was fit to stand trial. “We do not take on these kind of prosecutions lightly, but the medical evidence provided to us could not justify dropping such a serious case,” she said. De Freitas reported an alleged rape to the police in January 2013, a few days after the alleged incident in which she said she had been drugged then raped. The police investigated the incident, interviewing her and the alleged perpetrator, before telling her that they could not proceed further as there was not a realistic chance of a successful conviction. David de Freitas said she accepted the decision and tried to get on with her own life. But the man at the centre of the claim pursued a private prosecution through a firm of lawyers. Some months later the CPS took over the case. The trial against De Freitas was due to open on 7 April this year. On 4 April she killed herself. Victim Support, Justice for Women and the charity Inquest have raised concerns about the decision to prosecute De Freitas. But Saunders said if a private prosecution in such cases was found to meet both evidential and public interest tests – as the De Freitas case did - it should only be left with a private prosecutor in exceptional cases. A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said: “At the request of the CPS, an officer from the specialist crime command provided assistance with disclosure issues.” |