UK Celebrity Big Brother scandal: Roxanne Pallett let down all assault victims with false claim
UK Celebrity Big Brother contestant Roxanne Pallett almost ended an innocent man’s career with her false assault allegations - and let down all women, says Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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A FALSE accusation of abuse is as damaging as real abuse.
UK Celebrity Big Brother contestant Roxanne Pallett let all assault victims down when she made false allegations against housemate Ryan Thomas this week.
In fact, she’s let all women down, because women are most often thought to be the ones who make up false claims against men.
PALLETT’S EXPLOSIVE CLAIMS ARE FALSE
MORRISON NEEDS TO ACT LIKE A PM
Pallett, a former soapie actor, claimed Thomas, a Neighbours star and former boxer, “punched her repeatedly” and hit her “four or five times in the ribs”.
“I was in so much pain all night. It was intentional to hurt … He did it with his fist and it was so sore and so aggressive,” she said on the show.
It seemed at first like Thomas’ career would be over until footage of the incident was screened, which showed he didn’t make contact with Pallett at all. The footage shows him play fighting with her, throwing mock punches in her direction.
Pallett has since done a series of interviews saying her own experiences of domestic violence and the heightened atmosphere in the house made it feel worse than it was.
She said: “When I look back on that footage, as soon as I left the house … I got it wrong. Everything in that house becomes heightened, a look, an action, a comment. All I can say is in the moment, it felt worse than it was. It was the word deliberately that I regret, massively.”
She’s since retired from showbiz in disgrace.
Good riddance, I say.
Anyone making serious allegations like this — which have the power to totally derail another person’s life — have a responsibility to tell the whole truth.
The episode is very concerning because it further fuels the assumption that women cook up sexual assault allegations to get attention or punish men.
Yes, some people — both women and men — do make up sexual assault allegations, but the much bigger problem is the under-reporting of real assaults.
One analysis of more than ten years’ research concluded that between two per cent and ten per cent of sexual assault claims are false.
Compare this to a 2006 ABS study which found 80 per cent of sexual abuse victims do not report their abuse.
Alarmingly, research shows some of those who believe a lot of women make things up are lawyers and police officers. This is widely believed to be one of the reasons for the massive under-reporting of abuse.
High profile cases of women making up abuse will deter others who have been abused from making complaints or going to the police.
It’s not good enough for Pallett to simply say she “got it wrong” and made a “massive, massive, horrible mistake”.
The #metoo movement’s power to derail careers and ruin reputations in this post-Weinstein era must be met with the appropriate degree of caution.
We must remember that some of those making claims do so with ulterior motives. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
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