My innocent bro, 17, was accused of rape… he hanged himself after charges were dropped – but our misery didn’t end there

JAY Cheshire, 17, was at his local sixth form college hoping to study history at university when his world was torn apart.

The girl he had been dating reported to police that he had raped her.

Teenager Jay Cheshire, pictured with sister Camellia, was accused of rape by a girl he’d been seeingSolent News

MirrorpixCamellia says Jay’s whole world fell apart following the accusations[/caption]

Simon Jones – News Group NewspapersEventually the girl withdrew her statement and he was declared innocent – but the mental damage proved not so easily remedied[/caption]

Months of anguish followed, where his life was in limbo and the once popular, fun teenager became a shell of a person. 

Eventually the girl withdrew her statement and he was declared innocent – but the mental damage proved not so easily remedied.

Jay tragically took his life by hanging himself from a tree in his local park in Southampton, where he and his sister, Camellia, used to play. 

He had left a letter addressed to his mother, Karin, and sister explaining why he felt he had to do what he did. 

The trauma led to his mother having a breakdown and, on the first anniversary of her son’s death she, too, took her own life.

“I’ve lost the two most important people to me in my life,” says Camellia.

“It all links back to the same thing – the allegation. If those words were never said, they would still both be alive. 

“I think about them every single day. It’s horribly lonely. I would give everything I have to be able to speak to them for five more minutes.”

The tragic story is told in the powerful documentary I Am Not a Rapist, now on Netflix, along with two other traumatic accounts of the consequences of false rape allegations on young men.

It was a spring evening in 2015 when Jay arrived home distraught, following an incident with a girl he had been seeing. 

“We had a really great relationship,” says Camellia, who was 21 at the time. 

“We liked the same films, we played PlayStation together. He was a gentleman, sweet and intelligent.

“He told me that he and the girl were involved in foreplay and he was lying next to her and had got on top of her and she just froze. 

“He sat back and kept asking her, ‘What’s the matter? Have I done something wrong?’ and she said that she wanted him to go home. 

“I began texting and calling her and she answered the phone and said, ‘Hi,’ and then her mother grabbed the phone off her and said that they had put in a rape allegation. 

“She added, ‘I’m going to f*****g get him done’.”

‘Treated like a criminal’

BBC Three
Camellia had a great relationship with her brother, who she described as ‘a gentleman, sweet and intelligent’[/caption]

BBC ThreeThe pair shared the same taste in films and often played video games together[/caption]

BBC ThreeCamellia went with Jay to the police station after the complaint was made against him[/caption]

Jay called the police himself to try and find out more information. 

He was told a complaint had been made against him and he agreed to go to the station for voluntary questioning. 

As he was still a minor, Camellia went with him. 

“We met with the duty solicitor,” she says. “Because of all the inconsistencies throughout the statement they had originally made of my brother, he was advised to say ‘no comment’ because there was nothing there.”

Camellia was allowed into the interview room with him and remembers the ferocity of the police officer. 

“She was all guns blazing,” she recalls. “She didn’t hold back – ‘Did you rape her?’ ‘Did you force her?’ ‘Did you penetrate her?’ 

“Because of the way she was wording things it made Jay want to answer and the more times he said ‘no comment’ when he wanted to answer these questions the more the tears were streaming. 

“I could feel him shaking under my hand. He was being treated like a criminal and I thought, ‘Look at him. He’s a boy’.”

Following his interview, Jay was released under investigation.

“From that moment on he was just a shell of a person,” says Camellia. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever really seen a boy bellow and cry and just be as distraught as he was. It was like he had his soul ripped away.”

‘Spiralled’

The trauma led to Jay and Camellia’s mum Karin having a breakdown and, on the first anniversary of her son’s death she, too, took her own lifeSolent News & Photo Agency

Weeks went by without any update from the police, until the family’s efforts to find information finally succeeded. 

“It took us calling them for them to tell us that the girl had dropped the allegation and that there would be no further action,” Camellia says.

That was in June 2015 – but by then it was too late to save Jay. 

“By this point, Jay had spiralled completely.”

On the night before his death, two weeks after the allegation had been withdrawn, Camellia was working late at her local pub. 

“I had come home and mum said that Jay had gone out and I went to bed as it had been a really long day and I was tired,” she recalls. 

“The next thing I know we get a knock on the door and my mum screamed up to me upstairs, ‘Jay has hanged himself, Camellia. We need to get our clothes on and go to the hospital.’ 

“A police officer told us that Jay had bought his favourite energy drink, his favourite bag of crisps and a length of rope. 

“He was found by a dog walker who called the police and they cut him down. It was from a tree we used to play on when we were kids. 

“They managed to revive him and get a heartbeat, but he had sustained so much brain damage that he wasn’t there anymore. 

“He was 17 and he died on 5th July 2015.”

Jay had left a letter addressed to his mum and sister, explaining why he felt he had to take his life.

“Five days after he passed away, my mum had a mental breakdown,” says Camellia. 

“She weakened over my brother’s one year anniversary and she hanged herself as well.”

Karin, whose mental health had badly deteriorated, was found dead by neighbours at her home on 18 July 2016.

‘Never fully free’

PA:Press AssociationLiam Allan was also accused of rape when he was 20[/caption]

Like Jay, Liam Allan was also accused of rape – but, in this instance, it was not withdrawn and it was only after he went on trial that the case collapsed and he was found innocent.

Liam, then 20, was at home in Croydon, playing PlayStation in his bedroom when there was a knock at the front door in January 2016.

Mum Lorraine opened it to find police wanted to speak to her son about a ‘serious’ issue.

“I was terrified because I couldn’t work out why they were there,” he says.

He was taken to the police station where he was put in a holding cell.

“When they told me there had been a serious accusation of rape, my jaw dropped. And when I asked who had made the allegation, there was fear, anger and betrayal. Every negative emotion in one.”

In the interview room a detective constable read out a series of rapes that the complainant had accused him of. 

It included the first time they had had sex, when she says she had asked him to stop because it was painful, but claimed he told her she would have to continue, and, on a later occasion, tying her to his bed and having sex with her while she was crying.

“After the interview I was bailed and told to go home. I practically collapsed into my mum’s arms because I couldn’t breathe,” Liam says. 

“I couldn’t quite process what had happened. We were all just in tears. That’s the moment when my freedom went. And, in a way, I haven’t fully got it back.

“People still think that these things happened and therefore I must be a bad person. There’s a stigma attached to it.”

Two years of anguish

FacebookIn the interview room a detective constable read out a series of rapes that Liam had been accused of[/caption]

BBC supplied by pixel8000 ltdLiam faced 12 counts of rape and sexual assault[/caption]

It was four months after Liam last had contact with the complainant that she contacted the police and made the allegations of multiple rape against him.

He had to cope with this heavy cloud hanging over him, with no update from the police, until over a year later when he was told he was being charged and would have to go to court. 

It would be another year of unimaginable anguish before the trial took place.

He faced 12 counts of rape and sexual assault. 

“I remember walking into court and the prosecution started reading out the charges and it was going on and on and on,” he says.

One claim was that they had been walking through a park when they came to a secluded area where he pushed her against a tree, pulled down his trousers and raped her.

For the first time in more than two years, Liam heard his accuser’s voice, giving evidence from behind a screen. 

“When she started speaking, that was the part where I couldn’t cope,” he says. 

“I physically shook, couldn’t stop crying and bit my hand to stop myself from shouting because somebody was sitting in front of 12 other people spouting the most horrific lies.”

But the case was thrown out the following day after it emerged that a detective had not handed over crucial text messages from the girl’s mobile phone to the defence team.

When Liam’s Defence Barrister, Julia Smart, went through phone records, she found many messages from the claimant to Liam at the time in which she said of the first time they had sex: “It wasn’t against my will or anything.” 

It was evident that she had been pestering him for sex and she indulged in rape fantasies such as, “When are you going to take me into the park and rape me in the bushes?”

“She said she didn’t like sex with him but the text messages say that she loved sex with him,” said Prosecution Barrister, Jerry Hayes. 

“There were rape fantasies about sex in the open air. If the defence hadn’t got that evidence, that man would have been convicted and got 12 years, had his life trashed and on a sexual offences register for ever.”

Andy Lloyd/Triangle NewsThe case was thrown out after it emerged that a detective had not handed over crucial text messages from the girl’s mobile phone to the defence team[/caption]

‘Rape claim cost me my job’

The documentary also tells the story of Ashley, from Abertillery, Wales, who was arrested on suspicion of raping an acquaintance in 2019 when he was 22.

The pair had consensual sex, yet the girl – who had a boyfriend she told Ashley was abusive – later claimed it was rape. Ashley was arrested and endured months of torment which saw him lose his job and fall into debt.

Eventually he had an email from police informing him she’d withdrawn her statement and the case was dropped.

“I would have expected the decency to be them turning up on my front door,” he said. “They don’t care what people go through. They should really treat people fairly.

“I’m still mentally scarred by what has happened. But I try not to think about it and move on with my life.”

In 2024, 71,227 rapes were recorded by police in the UK. After being reported, adult rape cases take two years, on average, to complete in court.

Although it is difficult to put a figure on it, research suggests false rape claims are rare. 

Separate studies by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice suggest a figure of around three per cent of reported rapes may be false.

I Am Not a Rapist is available to watch on Netflix now.

Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]