When you’re wrongfully accused of a sexual assault — it’s easy to start panicking and making mistakes that eliminate your chances to win. You can hire the best sexual assault lawyer in Calgary or in whole Canada, and they won’t be able to save you from the charges, if you don’t help them.
A good lawyer will do everything to win your case, but you can actually help them a lot. Here’s how.
Sexual Assault in Canada Definition
In Canada, sexual assault is a criminal offense. It is any type of unwanted touching or attempted sexual contact. Sexual assault charges can be brought against a man or woman, adult or child, regardless of gender or sexuality. A person can be charged with this offense if they have forced, threatened to force, or tricked a victim into submitting to sexual contact. The touching does not need to be against the victim’s will for it to be considered sexual assault. It also does not matter if the perpetrator and victim are strangers, or even if they are in a relationship or married.
How to Help Your Lawyer Win Your Case
Here are some simple rules to follow when you learn that you are accused of sexual assault:
- Contact as soon as you can;
- Stay calm;
- Do not take any unnecessary actions;
- Collect and preserve as much info as you can.
Some of them are simple and basic, some are more specific, but you need to follow each one of them to increase your chances to win.
Contact a Sexual Assault Lawyer ASAP
It’s important because this way they can start working on your case and win some time (that is a scarce resource in any case, especially when it comes to criminal offense). The sooner you contact your lawyer, the more time they will have to evaluate the entire situation and find a solution that works for you.
Stay Calm
If you get wrongfully accused — it ALWAYS feels outrageous, ridiculous, laughable and infuriating. However, you should stay calm. From the moment you get accused, it’s not a question of truth. It’s not about justice. It’s not even about morals. It’s only — and only — about the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canadian court system. That’s it. It’s a technical thing, not a moral one. It’s a field where you — unless you’re a sexual assault lawyer yourself — have no experience. So stay calm and make sure you have a professional you can rely on by your side.
Do Not Take Any Unnecessary Actions that Can Kill Your Case
You have a lot of choices to make when you find out about the accusation against yourself. The consequences of even simple and basic things can be dreadful for your case. The set of popular mistakes includes, but is not limited to:
- Contacting the person that accused you (regardless of the context, you can try to apologize and find a common ground or you can raise your tone of voice — it will be all used against you);
- Telling literally anyone about your case (including your closest circle, your friends, colleagues, or — the worst case scenario — people that communicate both with you and the person that accused you, i.e. common friends);
- Trying to run (fleeing the country, the city, the province, or anything);
- Contacting the police by yourself (especially before you contact a sexual assault lawyer).
Thousands of cases were ruined by unnecessary, dangerous actions, and there’s no sexual assault lawyer in Calgary that would be able to save you after some of them.
Collect And Preserve As Much Info As You Can
By preserving info we mean your memories. Sexual assault cases can get easily dragged in court, and in a month or two of constant stress and pressure — you wont even trust your own decisions or thoughts.
That’s why it’s so important to sit down, take a pen or a laptop, and write down — in as much detail as possible — everything you remember about the situation and your relationship with the person that calls themselves a victim. Day by day, date after date, in all details. You — and most importantly, your sexual assault lawyer in Calgary — will 100% have to turn to this document over and over again, until your case is successfully closed in your favour.
By collecting info we do NOT mean contacting the other side. it simply means downloading and saving as much of your dialogs and contacts with the person as you can. Download all your messages from Facebook, all their likes and shares, all your pictures from Instagram, all the emojis or pictures you’ve sent them on Snapchat — and what they’ve sent you. This data is useless by itself, but it will be a great help when your criminal lawyer will plan their defense plan and the line of questioning.
The Last Advice: Prepare to Fight
Sexual assault cases are among the toughest ones possible. Take it as a fact: there will be people that will believe the other side, and not you. There will be people that will change their opinion about yourself before the court even takes a look at your papers. There will be judgment and pressure. You will eventually catch yourself thinking, whether the fight is worth it.
The truth is: the fight is always worth it. Every sexual assault lawyer knows how challenging it can be for the convicted person to stay calm and be willing to continue the fight. However, with your help and a good lawyer — even the most “hopeless” situation can be resolved in your favor.