Allegation and Suicide
In March 1998, a seventeen-year-old claimed to police that he had been sexually assaulted by Fashanu after a night of drinking (the age of consent in Maryland is 16). The assault was alleged to have taken place in Fashanu's apartment in Ellicott City, Maryland, United States. Fashanu was questioned about this by the police on 3 April, but he was not held in custody. It was widely reported in the press that the police later arrived at his flat with a warrant to arrest him on charges of second-degree sexual assault, first-degree assault, and second-degree assault. However, Fashanu had already returned to England.
On the morning of 3 May 1998, he was found hanged in a deserted lock-up garage he had broken into, in Shoreditch, London, after visiting Chariots Roman Spa, a local gay sauna. In his suicide note, he stated: "I realised that I had already been presumed guilty. I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family." An inquest in London, held on 9 September 1998, heard that there was in fact no warrant out for Fashanu's arrest and that the American police had already dropped the investigation due to a lack of evidence. The inquest recorded a verdict of suicide. He was cremated and his ashes were given to his family in Norfolk. In 2012, his niece, Amal Fashanu stated, "I'm proud Justin was my uncle and that he was brave enough to say what he did. I think my dad now regrets the harsh way he responded. The game needs more people like my uncle if homophobic barriers are to be removed." She presented the one-off BBC Three documentary Britain's Gay Footballers.
"I'm not homophobic and I never had been, but at the time I was certainly cross with my brother. I sleep at night wondering all the time, could I have done more and I keep coming up with the answer, yes I could have done more. Does that console me? No. We've cried for nearly two decades for Justin, it's enough." —John Fashanu (father of Amal) regrets some of the comments he made when his brother first came out.Read more about this topic: Justin Fashanu
Famous quotes containing the words allegation and/or suicide:
“Generosity is a part of my character, and I therefore hasten to assure this Government that I will never make an allegation of dishonesty against it wherever a simple explanation of stupidity will suffice.”
—Lever Leslie, Baron (1905–1977)
“However great a man’s fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear- headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance—so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)