Tell him I was with you. Say you have not heard from me. If he calls, say I am at the shop.
Most people helping somebody in this situation are asked for something like this eventually, usually at short notice and usually by telephone. This is how to think about it before it happens, because deciding in the moment tends to produce either a reflexive yes or a reflexive no, and both can be wrong.
Start here: why she is asking
Not to deceive you, and usually not out of drama. She is trying to buy an unaccounted hour, or to prevent a specific consequence she can predict precisely.
An hour with a lawyer. An appointment. A conversation with her mother. Or, most often, avoiding having to explain a gap in the afternoon that will otherwise be treated as evidence of something.
Understanding that changes the question. She is not asking you to be dishonest for its own sake; she is asking you to be an alibi for an ordinary act that has been made dangerous.
Where it is straightforwardly fine
Covering an absence, in ordinary conversation, to protect somebody’s safety.
“She was here with me this afternoon.” “I have not seen her today.” “She left her phone at my place.”
This is not a moral problem in any serious sense. Somebody who has to account for every hour to a person who punishes the answers is not living under a system where full disclosure is a virtue, and helping her get an unobserved hour is a reasonable thing to do.
Two conditions make it work. Keep it simple, because detail is what collapses. And make sure the story you are telling is the one she is telling, which means agreeing it in advance rather than improvising when he rings.
Where it gets more difficult
Where you are asked to lie to the police. This is a different category. Do not give a false statement, do not sign anything untrue, and do not confirm something you do not know. It is a criminal matter, it puts you at real risk, and if it unravels it damages her case as much as yours.
If you do not want to say something, “I would rather not comment” is available. It is not the same as making a false statement.
Where you are asked to lie in court. No. Perjury is serious, and a witness who is caught out destroys the credibility of the whole case, including the parts that are true.
What you can do instead is enormously valuable: give evidence about what you actually saw, heard and were told at the time. A person who says “she rang me that night, crying, and said he had pushed her” is a strong witness precisely because it is true and contemporaneous.
Where the lie is about the children. Be careful. Anything touching custody or a child’s whereabouts is legally sensitive, and helping in a way that could be characterised as concealing a child from a parent with rights can go badly for both of you. Get advice rather than improvising.
Where you would be lying to somebody else who is at risk. Occasionally what is asked would leave another person in the dark about something that affects their safety. That is worth thinking about rather than agreeing to reflexively.
Your own risk
Worth being clear-eyed about, because it is usually not discussed until afterwards.
If he works out that you covered for her, you become part of it. People who shelter or assist women in this position are sometimes threatened, and occasionally harmed. Your family becomes visible. Your address becomes relevant.
That is not a reason to refuse. It is a reason to know what you are agreeing to, to keep it simple, and to decide what you would do if he arrived at your gate — do not confirm anything, do not let him wait inside, call the police if he will not leave.
How to say no without withdrawing
Sometimes the answer is no, and the way it is said matters more than the answer.
The failure is refusing in a way that reads as a door closing. What works is refusing the specific thing while offering something else in the same breath.
- “I cannot say that to the police. I will come with you, and I will tell them what I saw myself.”
- “I do not want to lie about the children, but you can stay here tonight.”
- “I will not say that. I will say I do not discuss other people, which is true.”
Never make it a lecture. “I am not going to lie for you” delivered as a principle ends the relationship, and the relationship is the actual thing she needs. The sentences that close a conversation are worth reading.
The better alternatives
Often what she needs can be provided without anybody lying at all, and it is worth offering these instead.
- A genuine reason to be out. Invite her to something real, regularly. A standing arrangement nobody has to invent is worth more than any single cover story.
- Your address for post, or your phone as a contact number.
- Holding documents or a bag. The single most useful thing, and it involves no deception at all.
- A room for an hour, so she can make a call unobserved.
- A code word and one instruction, agreed in advance. How to set that up.
- Writing down what you witness, with dates. Independent, contemporaneous and entirely truthful, and it is frequently the most valuable thing a friend contributes.
Agree it properly
If you are going to do it, do it well rather than half-heartedly.
Agree exactly what the story is and keep it short. Agree what you say if pressed for detail — “I do not remember what time” is safer than inventing one. Agree what you do if he turns up, and agree that she tells you when the cover is no longer needed, so you are not maintaining something months later.
And be honest with yourself about whether you can sustain it. Half a cover story is worse than none, because it gets caught, and she pays for it rather than you.
Questions people ask
Is it wrong to cover for her?
Covering an absence in ordinary conversation to protect somebody’s safety is not a serious moral problem. She is trying to buy an unaccounted hour for an ordinary act that has been made dangerous.
She wants me to tell the police something untrue. Should I?
No. A false statement is a criminal matter, it puts you at real risk, and if it unravels it damages her case more than yours. “I would rather not comment” is available and is not the same thing.
What can I do instead of lying in court?
Give evidence about what you actually saw, heard or were told at the time. “She rang me that night, crying, and said he had pushed her” is a strong contemporaneous account precisely because it is true.
How do I say no without letting her down?
Refuse the specific thing and offer something else in the same sentence — “I cannot say that to the police, but I will come with you”. Never deliver it as a principle, because that ends the relationship she actually needs.
What is the risk to me?
If he works out you covered for her, you become part of it, and people who help are sometimes threatened. That is a reason to keep it simple and to decide in advance what you do if he arrives, not a reason to refuse.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, email us at hello@healbridge.org, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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