STATEMENT: Twitter Accusations

The Football Committee respond to accusations against a player.

UPDATE 14:50 24th November 2017:

After speaking to PC Jackson (665zd) from Croydon Police Station, we can confirm that NEITHER party has a police caution, and no accusations of sexual harassment were recorded. Both parties were given 'words of advice' re their behaviour and all cases are closed.

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On Thursday 16th of November, A twitter account made allegations of sexual harassment against an unnamed DHFC player and stated the club had banned her indefinitely from Champion Hill Stadium.

We as a group of fans and volunteers on the football committee take these matters incredibly seriously, and because of that have perhaps waited too long to release this statement. However we felt it was important to get all information possible, and ascertain if there was any live police investigation ongoing.

As many of you may know, in light of current developments, we no longer have any jurisdiction over the running or management of the stadium site, and currently find ourselves as tenants. The Ban was issued by our stadium operator on Nov 6th, 6 days after they took their stance and pulled funding and ties with the football club. We, as a club, were not informed of this decision prior to being made aware of it on twitter. Members of the committee had been in touch with the twitter user since August regarding the twitter users ejection from the stadium, however it was taken on by the General Manager of the stadium and we were not informed that a conclusion had been reached.

Of course we were incredibly shocked, and reached out to the twitter account owner immediately to try and ascertain what had happened. We then also spoke to the management team and the player involved. We then asked both parties for their experience and to try and supply us with whatever information and evidence they could, so that we could ascertain wether the stadium ban was the right course of action.

We have now seen evidence that both parties have received police cautions for harassment against eachother, and no further legal action is being taken by the Police in regard to matters that have been active for well over 2 years. With this being the case, the stadium owner has felt it right to stop the twitter account owner from attending the player's place of work to avoid similar confrontation.

Given the information we have received from both parties, we believe this to have been the correct decision to take in the circumstances . Whilst it is regrettable that we should have to do this, we do not believe that we had there is any alternative course of action available based on the current legal position taken by the police.

As no criminal action has been taken against the player, we believe that the player is not in breach of his contract and as a result no action should be taken by the club or team management .

DHFC Football Committee