The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, John Yates, who is responsible for raising standards in rape investigations, delivers a damning verdict on the way police handle rape cases in today's Guardian.
The statistics are shocking: only 5.7% of rape cases reported to police lead to a conviction, the lowest rate in Europe. An increase in date rape cases, which are harder to prove, has been blamed for the conviction rate plummeting since the 1980s.
But the assistant commissioner's comments suggest depressingly little has changed in the way complaints are dealt with.
"Yates said detectives don't apply the same professionalism to rape as they do to other serious crimes. He blamed police for too often greeting complainants with scepticism and inertia, and said officers 'must absolutely accept the victim's version of events unless there are very substantial reasons to do otherwise'," today's report said.
"There are pockets of excellence, but in many areas we have been satisfied with mediocrity," Yates remarked.
Rarely can an officer have spoken with such candidness about police failures - but will it do any good? Do his comments come as any surprise or is he just telling people what most victims already know?
* This is an extract from the Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.
