Characteristics of true versus false allegations of sexual offences

The goal of the study was to establish whether false allegations of sexual offences with an unknown perpetrator can be distinguished from accurate allegations. Case files of 27 true allegations of sexual offences with an unknown perpetrator were compared to those of 14 false allegations. The comparison was guided by a list of 43 criteria that are hypothesized to differentiate between true and false allegations of sexual assault. Analyses indicated the employed criteria differentiated true from false allegations to a certain extent. However, the discriminative strength of some criteria appeared to be stronger than that of others. Research is required to assess further the discriminative power of these criteria.