A teenage rape victim was sent a graphic letter recounting her assault and explaining her attacker would not face charges, a watchdog has revealed.
Her experience is one of hundreds highlighted by the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who says prosecutors are failing to adequately explain life-changing charging decisions in six in ten letters to victims of crime.
Anthony Rogers, has hit out at a lack of care by prosecutors writing vital letters to survivors about whether their case will proceed to trial.
He told The Independent “something has to change” after his latest inspection showed only 36.9 per cent of letters sent under the Victim Communication and Liaison scheme (VCL) met basic standards.
The findings have left him “exceptionally frustrated” and “very disappointed” after the watchdog first raised the issue in 2018 and again in 2020.
He said the letters are often a victim’s only contact with the CPS after a traumatic incident, adding: “In terms of public confidence, getting a bad letter or getting a letter that you feel doesn't explain very well, and you don't really understand very well, must be actually horrific to a victim.”
Often, the poor explanation is driven by a lack of good case analysis and strategy in the first place, he added.
He has now called for the CPS to "significantly improve the quality” of letters by July 2027, by which time he wants to see 70 per cent meeting minimum standards.
Although overall levels of empathy had significantly improved since his last inspection in 2020, 57 of 420 letters assessed did not display the appropriate empathy with its recipient, the inspection found.
A total of 91 letters did not correctly explain the CPS legal decisions and more than half failed to sufficiently explain the decision. In five cases, prosecutors had failed to spell the victim or defendant’s name correctly.
“If you can't spell somebody's name right, how much do you really care when you are drafting that letter,” Mr Rogers said, but added that this had significantly improved since his last inspection.
In one letter to a 17-year-old rape victim, a prosecutor included extensive detail about the alleged crime as they explained they would not be taking any further action. The letter contained no warning of the graphic or potentially triggering information, which recounted the allegations in “minute detail”.
The letter included dense legal jargon which had not been adapted for a teenage reader and risked re-traumatising them, the report found.
“I was shocked at how graphic that was,” Mr Rogers added.
A letter is not just paper, it’s the moment the justice system speaks directly to a victim
By Anthony Rogers, Chief Inspector, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate
When someone reports a crime to the police, they place their trust in a system that most of them know little about. They wait, sometimes for months, sometimes longer, for a decision that will shape what happens next in their life. And then, in many cases, they receive a letter.
That letter is not an administrative formality. For a victim of rape, domestic abuse, or serious violence, it may be the moment they learn that no one will be prosecuted for what was done to them. It is, in the most direct sense, the voice of the Crown Prosecution Service speaking to a person at one of the most difficult points in their life.
This is the third time in eight years that my organisation has inspected the quality of those letters. And for the third time, I find myself writing: this is still not good enough.
Fewer than four in ten of the 420 letters we examined met the standard we would expect. That figure has improved since 2018 as the CPS has invested genuinely in improving victim communications. Empathy in letters has risen dramatically, from 58% to over 86%.
But progress in tone is not the same as progress in substance. A letter that feels warm while failing to clearly explain why a prosecution was not brought has not done its job. The Victims' Code is unambiguous: victims have a legal right to understand decisions made in their cases. Not a courtesy. Not an aspiration. A right.
I read some of the letters our inspectors assessed. In one, a teenager who had reported rape at fifteen received, two years later, a letter explaining the decision to take no further action that contained no warning of its graphic content, repeated her account in unnecessary detail, and was written in impenetrable legal language. She was seventeen when she opened it. That is not a failure of any standardised template. It is a failure of professional judgment and human care.
I am not writing this to condemn the CPS. The people working within it are, in my experience, committed to doing right by victims. The Victim Centre of Excellence has worked hard and its impact is visible.
What I want to see by our imposed deadline of July 2027 is not just better scores, but a different culture, one in which a prosecutor writing to a victim asks themselves not "have I completed this letter?" but "will this person understand what I have decided, and why?"
That is what victims are owed. And it is entirely within the CPS's power to deliver it.
He called for prosecutors to consider the ‘grandmother test’ when drafting difficult letters by imaging how that letter would be received by a loved one.
“Somebody you love, they're opening that letter blind,” he said. “How would you feel if that was your, the person you love the most in the world? I think the CPS need to think about that a bit more now.”
In a separate report on CPS handling of rape cases earlier this year, inspectors found less than 16 per cent of cases met required standards during the pre-charge decision-making phase.
Although he does not have statutory powers to enforce his recommendations, the watchdog has urged the CPS to urgently act to improve its communication with victims, who are often vulnerable and traumatised.
“I am so frustrated,” he continued. “I want this one to land, because I want everybody to know six years on, eight years on, something has to change, and the service they're receiving from the CPS at the moment is just not good enough.”
The inspector previously reviewed the CPS’s handling of the prosecution of Nottingham attacker Valdo Calocane, which sparked outrage from victims’ families after prosecutors accepted his guilty pleas to manslaughter by diminished responsibility rather than pursuing murder charges.
He said Calocane’s case highlighted the “fragmented and disjointed” nature of a victim’s journey through the justice system, adding: “Experiencing this as a victim is very confusing.”
In his annual report, which was also laid in Parliament this week, the inspector said victims are being failed by a criminal justice system that treats their support as a series of separate initiatives rather than a shared national priority.
Although the government has invested significantly in victim support, he warns that these measures are being developed in isolation across different government departments.
“I don't understand why you have to, as a victim, interact with potentially half a dozen or more [people], and that's actually potentially in a very easy case, you know. That's in a simple case.”
All too often, victims have little understanding of how the justice system works from police reports, to CPS charging decisions, to court hearings, he added, suggesting citizenship classes in schools would help increase public awareness.
Sarah Hammond, CPS lead for victims and witnesses, said: “Victims are at the heart of everything we do. Behind every charge is a person whose life has been impacted, often profoundly.
“This report recognises that while progress has been made, particularly in the empathy shown in letters to victims, it is clear there is still significant improvement needed. Work to make those improvements is already underway.
“Improving how we communicate with and support victims remains a priority, so that they feel informed, supported and at the centre of the justice process throughout.”
The Independent contacted the Ministry of Justice for comment.
