Our thanks to Len for this.
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Like many such stories the situations around accusations reflect the “Jeremy Kyle” world. Where the police are regarded as just a part of life and often are “used” in getting back at partners or for temporary leverage in disputes. In this case the “blackmail” for £50 illustrates the triviality of what is going on, even flinging around accusations of a capital crime. Similarly I’m sure nice people simply can’t imagine someone making such allegations to get “compo” of £9k, yet in fact to many thats a substantial sum to feed a drug or drink habit or get Holiday and new TV worth making an accusation for as it simply has to be recorded to get the compo and you don’t have to give it back if nothing more comes of it. The police are constantly berated for not recording “domestics” and “rape” properly and so have to record lots and lots of incidents, often from chaotic people or “families” that they know well and they know will go nowhere . In the past they’d simply use their past knowledge and deal with it on the spot. Now, as a friend says, they have to treat every booze fueled spat about the TV or straying boyfriend as a priority. A couple of months ago on this site was a similar story of a woman accusing a man of rape to extort the sum of £2000! Again I’m sure nice middle class people can’t believe such trivial (to them) amounts can be motivations for levelling charges as serious as rape.