Reflections on Anna Doherty's and Ava Vidal's presentations at the ETI conference 2025: "Women on false allegations and wrongful convictions"

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending and supporting the Empowering the Innocent (ETI): Women on False Accusations and Wrongful Convictions conference. This was an engaging experience in which we heard from a variety of brilliant guest speakers, many of which have themselves had to deal with the scourge that is false allegations, whether directly or indirectly. In particular, I want to highlight two of these inspirational speeches, and how they tackled such a challenging conundrum.

The first of these speeches was by Anna Doherty. What I particularly engaged with in this speech is the notion that our current justice system is broken on both sides, particularly in regards to sexual offences. I myself have often been faced with and had to grapple with the supposedly contrasting concepts that our current system does not safeguard against these harmful false allegations, but also that those who are accused, and rightfully so, are not pursued, and the victims never receive their justice. At first glance, these two ideas seem mutually exclusive, and if you go in to the comment section of any media centered on sexual assault cases you will often find disagreements over whether the system is riddled with innocent people with their lives being ruined, or allegations going unheard and genuine victims having no real course of action. These disagreements usually reflect the underlying gender dynamics at the heart of these issues, with men usually claiming they fear the possibility of false accusations, while women claim they fear being unheard.

Anna Doherty

What Anna’s talk did, however, is examine these two sides, and propose that these issues can and do coexist, rather than being mutually exclusive. It is possible that the system allows for false allegations to be made, while those who make them go relatively unpunished, and that many real accusations are not fully pursued. In this sense, the justice system becomes not anti-accused or anti-accuser, but anti-victim. Having established and seen that there are plentiful examples of this on each end, it of course means these issues need to be resolved with a more comprehensive and complex approach. This is naturally very emotive, delicate and difficult, and explains why the proposed solutions from Anna’s talk drew so much discussion and debate. Anna proposed a trauma informed approach to these cases, in which both sides are better examined and taken care of, by those who can understand the potential or experienced trauma that each individual is experiencing. Through these types of perspectives we can begin to shift the dominant narratives around these cases, and guide the conflicts towards a solution which improves the justice system for all, not one which leans towards one, or neither side.

Anna’s work and inspiration comes from a personal experience with the harm that wrongful convictions can create. Her husband’s wrongful conviction had a profound impact on her family, even losing the opportunity to adopt a child, showing how the justice system still harms those wrongfully convicted who do not receive prolonged incarceration. This lead her to start Spoken Injustice, a networking hub which connects victims for support, and hopes to HUMANISE miscarriages of justice.

The other speech I wanted to highlight was from Ava Vidal, and her recounting of her personal experience being falsely accused. What struck me most about this talk was the notion of power in how we tell our stories. Ava recounted what is ordinarily a harrowing story, being hounded by a false allegation being used against her as a tool of revenge. She had refused to be an accomplice to her, at the time, friend’s false allegation of sexual misconduct towards a vulnerable individual, and thus the toxicity became directed towards her, enough so that eventually the man in question was removed from the story altogether. In her refusal to take part in the ‘man bad’ narrative and automatically support the accusations of another woman no matter what, she continues to be subjected to years of stalking and cyber harassment, and even ended up arguing her case in court.

Ava Vidal

Where the idea of how we tell our stories comes in to this is how Ava presents this narrative. She spoke with a resounding confidence, and even included some more comedic elements at times, drawing on her own background in comedy. This draws power away from the accuser, and allows Ava to take control of the narrative, and not let her win or give her the destruction she’d sought. She even later noted how the accuser would likely be furious that she was presenting there in the first place, annoyed that she’s finding strength and community where she was supposed to be torn down. Speaking to power is often difficult, as power does not often like to be spoken to, but this shows the inherent power in speaking, how we don’t have to let those who would use the justice system in perverse ways to tear others down.

This made Ava’s speech undeniably captivating, but also highlighted an important issue which other speeches later built on. This being the idea that women are not entirely innocent when discussing the justice system, the focus of the final presentation by conference chair, Felicity Stryjak. In fact, women can still sometimes be seen to be perpetrators, attempting to weaponise the supportive social narratives around them. Ava herself is a woman accused by another woman, and the vitriol her accuser felt was so strong she ended up abandoning her original target of a man, and focused entirely on her. As a woman myself, I, of course, recognise the need for us to be supported when these awful cases do happen, but on the other side there is a potential corruption to be found in the blind raising and inherent belief of every woman’s voice, or as Felicity termed it, every whisper or bit of unfounded gossip. Recognising this issue and trying to strike a balance is what makes sharing stories like these so important, ensuring we do not swing our justice system too far one way.

Overall, the conference was inspiring, and undoubtedly a great, and powerful experience which I am proud to have been a part of. It was a great sign of the community being built for the falsely accused, and most importantly, a way for them to be heard and supported. I would like to personally thank all our speakers for attending, as every speech was incredible to listen to and engage with

By Avery Thomson

University of Bristol Law School Graduate 2025

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