I had a situation like that, but not involving violence. Basically, a colleague did all he could to destroy my career, and succeeded. Nobody would believe me when I said that he said bad things about me to others, including my students, in order to turn them against me so they would give me bad teaching reviews. I knew I didn't do any of the things those students accused me of while I was teaching them (stuff such as making mistakes on the board and not knowing what I was talking about, which absolutely wasn't true). There were videos of all the lectures I had given , which, to anyone who would have taken the time to watch them, would have shown that I didn't do what the students said I did, and that I am a competent teacher. Still, nobody believed me.
Then I found a video of my colleague's own lecture, in which he is heard to say some of the terrible things about me in front of students that I knew he must have done. Even when the bosses saw that video, they still wouldn't believe that the students had been influenced by that person. There are now emails from that colleague as well that have been uncovered. I have tried to tell them that if the students had been told that I was incompetent right from the start, of course they are going to make the most of my minor mistakes in their minds and fail to see my good points. Nobody would listen or care, because my colleague was more popular with the students and it was therefore better business to keep him and get rid of me, which is exactly what they have done. My colleague is so charismatic, and is probably a sociopath as well, so is very good at lying and manipulating others. I am socially awkward, hard to like, too intense, and I react badly when I am overworked and mistreated, which is what was happening to me pretty much the whole time I was there. I was forced to do a lot of my colleague's work for him, and when I put my foot down and made it clear I wasn't going to do his work for him anymore, he found it really easy to manipulate my boss into getting rid of me and giving my project, for which I had received a considerable amount of funding through my own hard work, to him.
I have literally piles of awards and congratulatory letters (not to mention scholarships) that I received for outstanding academic performance through my studies. I have five university degrees, including a PhD from an Ivy League university. Yet everyone who knew all that was so willing to believe that my colleague, who got only B's and C's in his A-levels and was notable only for his mediocrity, was so much smarter and more talented than I am. Why? Because he makes eye contact better than I do? Because he is a talented schmoozer (and that is his only talent)? Because he is more likable? Of course someone who is handed everything on a silver platter without having to do any actual work is going to be more relaxed and therefore appear more likable.
The worst thing is everyone is so willing to believe the worst of me and to believe that I was a liar, even when I had solid evidence for what I was saying. This wasn't the first time this type of thing has happened to me.
It's so frustrating and soul-destroying to have to live and work in the NT world. Everything I have worked for has been stripped away from me and I have been discarded like a piece of garbage, and nobody cares.
