In October 2012 I started to become friends with Eleanor de Freitas. I had known her cousin Lizzie Noel for years. We began to chat daily on Facebook messenger and by December 2012 we had exchanged over 500 messages. In all that time she appeared to be a completely normal and fun person, there was nothing out of the ordinary. She was intelligent and previously a straight 'A' student. She was assertive, independent and confident.
On December 22nd 2012 she sent me text messages insisting that we meet for a "massage session" even though I was apprehensive. She told me to "change my sheets" and that we would have "croissants in bed together" the next day.
The next day she came round to my flat and we had some lunch and I accompanied her whilst she did her Christmas shopping. We came back later that afternoon to my flat where we chatted for hours and hours. She called her father and told him where she was (as she was living with her parents at the time). We later had consensual sex that evening and she stayed the night. We were not drunk, we had one small (300ml) bottle of cider each. Not even enough to be over the drink drive limit.
We woke up and had some breakfast, we were getting on amazingly well. She was only meant to come over for lunch (the day before) but now we had been together for almost 24hrs. We were playing music and she was dancing around my living room. (I later learned she messaged a mutual friend that morning and told him she had "huge fun" with me). At 1130am we went shopping to Ann Summers, a shop which sells sex toys. We joked about getting a vibrating egg and during the shopping trip she bought no less than £340 of sex aids whilst I watched.
The excessive shopping trip caused me some concern and also the night before she told me she had depression (even though she seemed the exact opposite to me). I started to have my suspicions she might be a prostitute. At around 6pm that evening I did some searches online and found out she was indeed an escort. It was all a bit to much for me.
She called me up around 7pm after having sent me some very strange text messages. It was only minutes after I found out she was an escort. I did not know what to think. I had a bad gut feeling about her since the Ann Summers shopping trip and decided to end things there and then. I felt manipulated and told her not to contact me.
I did not realise that this sudden rejection, after a night of passion, would set her off on a spiral of revenge. And so the "snow ball effect" began. First she began to tell people that I "upset her", and slowly, slowly, the lies snowballed into more serious allegations, and eventually a rape allegation.
Later that evening I saw some bizarre Facebook posts. On 26th December her cousin sent me messages accusing me of having done something awful to Eleanor. On 29th December her mother called me to ask what had happened? I answered all her questions but stopped short of saying her daughter was a call girl.
Friends began to avoid me and rumors started to circulate. On 3rd January 2013 I was told by a friend that Eleanor was going round telling people I had raped her, tortured her and didn't let her escape from my flat. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
On 4th January I wrote to Eleanor and told her to stop spreading lies or I would report her for harassment. I also called her father to explain the situation (since his wife had contacted me days earlier) although there was no answer so I left a voicemail.
That evening I went to the police station to report Eleanor for harassment. But instead of taking the report the police told me that Eleanor had been to the police station an hour before I had arrived and alleged I raped her. I was arrested and taken into custody.
During my police interview it was alleged that I waterboarded and tortured Eleanor, as well as raping her. It was absurd. However at this stage I no evidence to prove my innocence so it was actually very scary. I did not sleep for weeks, smoked like a chimney and lost a lot of weight.
By the end of February 2013 Ann Summers had given me a copy of the CCTV that showed Eleanor and I shopping for £340 of sex toys the morning after the alleged rape. Not only that but friends provided text messages that showed she told them she had "huge fun together" and that she complained about me rejecting her. The police dropped the case, but thy weren't interested in prosecuting Eleanor for lying. They just shrugged their shoulders as if it was nothing and said "these things happen".
Unfortunately Eleanor continued to go round and tell people for months and months that she had been raped. My life continued to be a nightmare. I had people contacting me telling me about all these things she was saying about me. Rape allegations never go away. Especially if you are arrested. "That's the guy who was arrested for rape," people will always say.
Was I going to live with these ongoing accusations? No way.
I decided the only way to clear my name was to prosecute Eleanor myself, through a private prosecution.
I hired a team of specialist lawyers and in August 2013 we took the CCTV and text message evidence, as well as other evidence and placed this evidence into court. Eleanor was issued with a summons.
This is when things got even weirder. Instead of getting his daughter a lawyer David de Freitas wrote to the police to try to have me arrested for "harassment"…. He was complaining about my court case being “harassment”, even though it was quite literally my lawyers asking a court to consider evidence.
I wanted a judge and a jury to see the evidence, which would lead to a verdict in my favour, so that I could prove my innocence, and get on with my life. But according to her father, that process was "harassment". Although in reality, it was me who was being harassed, for months on end, with the false accusations.
In the meantime Eleanor’s lawyers sent us a psychiatric report which said she was fit to stand trial. (It was a damning report and probably sent by her lawyers in error). In the report Eleanor complained extensively about her father and family life as having an impact on her mental health. There was no mention of me having an impact her mental health. It was mostly negative comments about her father.
Seven months later on November 6th 2014 the story hit the press. Eleanor’s father David de Freitas had gone to pretty much every feminist organization, every newspaper and TV broadcaster saying his daughter was wrongly prosecuted and that there was no evidence that she had lied. He also gave my name to the press. Within 24hrs my name was all over the internet.
I contacted his lawyers to tell them there was CCTV and text message evidence to show his daughter had lied about the rape allegation, in the hope he would realise his error and stop spreading lies. I thought he has made a mistake and hadn't seen the evidence. Instead of listening his lawyers reported me to police for “harassment” and continued their false campaign.
Not only was my name in the papers as a supposed rapist, which was all false, I was now back in the police station being interviewed for this latest harassment complaint. It was truly awful to have to be in that situation. I was being falsely accused again and again.
Most newspapers refused to delete inaccuracies and refused to mention the CCTV and text message evidence and my family received death threats. They were all siding with the feminists. So I went to the Mail On Sunday and I told my story and also set up a website publishing the CCTV and other evidence.
David de Freitas went back to the police and reported me for harassment again. Saying it was upsetting to see his daughter on CCTV shopping for sex toys and portrayed as a prostitute. But then why the did he bring this into the public domain then if he did not the actual truth published?
In December 2014 the Director of Public Prosections made a public statement confirming there was evidence which contradicted the account Eleanor de Freitas gave to police. But within minutes of this being published David de Freitas went to the press saying this was not true.
By August 2015 his lawyers had said in writing that he would continue going to the press and that he could repeat his allegations when he wanted. What to do? Let him accuse me of rape again and again? Or put a stop to it? Somehow he had managed to pursued every feminist charity in the UK that his daughter was innocent and I was guilty, this was me against an entire feminist army that would seek to destroy my reputation for the rest of my life. Things on the internet don't disappear. Every person I would ever meet would look me up (e.g. to find me on LinkedIn) and then they would see all this awful nonsense. It was important to clear my name in court.
The libel case was scheduled for June 2016. In the meantime David de Freitas, his lawyers and his feminist charities had written dozens of letters to the Police and CPS asking me to be charged with harassment. Eventually the authorities gave in to his demands and charged me with harassment, even thought I had not had contact since telling his lawyers to stop talking to the press almost eighteen months before. Because the case was in the public eye the authorities were acting under pressure from his feminists groups and had to be seen as not being soft, so they went ahead and prosecuted me.
I was put on trial in June 2016 for harassment and the judge found me not guilty. Judge Tan Ikram even said I was a man wrongly accused. I was relieved someone understood what was going on.
Two weeks later we had the libel case and the result quickly followed six weeks later. In his judgement My Justice Warby agreed that David de Freitas caused serious harm to my reputation and that the rape allegations made by Mr de Freitas were not true. But in a bizarre twist he said that David de Freitas free speech rights were more important than my reputation (also known as the Public interest Defence - Section 4 of the Defamation Act 2013). In other words he said it was more important de Freitas should be able to speak about his dead daughter even if what he was saying wasn’t true. And on that basis I lost the case and was ordered to pay David de Freitas legal bill, starting with a payment of £400,000. And was just the first installment! The full amount I was being asked to pay (at that time) was around £1.5m.
I couldn’t believe it. So here’s what has just happened. I was falsely accused of rape in the press for a six week period, (with the websites quoting David de Freitas defamatory statements to the world for two years). He knew there is CCTV and text messages that proved I was innocent but lied to the press regardless to fit his story. That's what we found out at trial. I asked him to stop at the time of his press campaign, by writing to his lawyers, and he continued. And not only does he get away with it I am ordered to pay all his legal bill. What justice is that? The name of that judge is Sir Mark Warby and he knows he got it wrong. He clearly felt sorry for de Freitas and made him win on a technicality.
So of course I decided to appeal. If I didn’t appeal then I would be bankrupted. So I went to the court of appeal. In December 2016 the court of appeal agreed the judgement was potentially wrong and agreed to hear the case in full. In the meantime just as expected David de Freitas issued bankruptcy proceedings against me, which were stayed pending the outcome of the appeal.
The appeal took ages though, two more years in fact. David de Freitas kept making applications to the court to have me bankrupted (unsuccessfully) and by the time we arrived in the Court of Appeal it was April 2018 - over five years since I was falsely accused of rape. I was exhausted by the court process.
Out of the blue in June 2018 the Attorney General made a public statement confirming again that it was correct to prosecute Eleanor de Freitas for making her rape allegations. It doesn't say I am innocent, but it implies there was a good reason to take her to court for lying.
In November 2018 we got the result of the appeal…. Unfortunately the court of appeal made the same decision as the original judge (Section 4 Defence). Freedom of speech wins over reputation they say. The judgement however does have a couple of pages dedicated to the CCTV and text message evidence which shows I am innocent [see paragraph 45 and 61]. Any lawyer will read the fine detail and see that I am innocent, but the general public are not going to read an entire judgement. To them losing a libel case means something else. However the section 4 defence in no way implies I am guilty, all it means is de Freitas gets a special immunity in the face of his false allegations, but it does mean I am going to have to pay for de Freitas £2m legal bill, and face bankruptcy.
One small victory though was that I did take the Metropolitan Police to court, myself and with no help from lawyers, for police misconduct during the "rape" investigation (for refusing to prosecute Eleanor or look at my cctv and text message evidence) and won £10,000. Unfortunately the press were not interested in reporting this.
The real shame about this case is that it's individuals like Eleanor de Freitas that cause real rape victims problems because when the real rapists are taken to trial the jury will think: "I wonder if she's not a vengeful liar like Eleanor". Real rape victims are now suffering because of her false allegations.
Mr de Freitas is equally guilty of spreading harmful misinformation around. He has told the world in his press campaign (and continues to do so) that Eleanor was prosecuted on the back of "no evidence" which will make real rape victims scared of coming forward thinking they could be prosecuted if their story is inconsistent. It is very important that people know there was a mountain of evidence against Eleanor and even two of her own doctors said she was fit to stand trial. It was a rare thing to have such a prosecution, because of the amount of evidence.
Some important facts:
- Eleanor made her first false rape complaint against another man in 2012, I was her second victim.
- She falsely accused her own parents of poisoning and imprisoning her in 2012, this is even admitted by her father... who argues it shows she was 'vulnerable' and should never have been put on trial.
- The case was only ever made public when David de Freitas went to the press in November 2014, and put his daughters (and my) name out there all over the internet.
- David de Freitas knew about the cctv and text message evidence before he went to the press, but mislead the public to fit his story, and said there was no evidence.
