Rape and other serious sexual offences devastate the lives of victims, who carry scars with them through their lives. Prosecutions and convictions for these crimes remain too rare. In the year to September 2022, there were 70,633 rapes reported by police in England and Wales; in 2022, there were 459 convictions. Such an enormous gap is nothing new and has led campaigners to argue that the crime of rape has effectively been decriminalised, with only a tiny minority of perpetrators caught and punished.
Given this backdrop, any improvement in the way that allegations are dealt with must be welcomed. So must meaningful development in the wider criminal justice policy environment overseen by the government. But Monday’s announcement by the Ministry of Justice about the progress made over the past two years should be treated cautiously. While there are some promising indications that the police and courts have made changes, particularly in their approach to complainants and their evidence, it is too soon for ministers to congratulate themselves that this is a problem they are on the way to solving.
The first point to note is that ambitions were never high. The goal ministers set was that the number of rape cases going to court should return to 2016 levels. This was when the first of several trials collapsed due to failures around disclosure (the process whereby evidence uncovered by prosecutors must be shared with defence lawyers). But concerns around barriers to justice for victims of sexual offences long predate this episode, and have been a focus for women’s justice campaigners for decades. Lady Vivien Stern carried out a review of the way that rape complaints were handled for the last Labour government, and mistakes regarding disclosure were one of the topics she addressed then.
Nevertheless it is a relief that the most recent decline in referrals from police to the Crown Prosecution Service has been reversed, and that charges have also risen – although these are still lower than in 2016. In the first three months of this year, 605 adult rape cases reached court, which is double the 2019 quarterly average. More significant than these statistics is the decision to roll out a new, specialist-led and suspect-focused approach to rape complaints, known as Operation Soteria, to all 43 police forces in England and Wales. If correctly implemented, this should lead to more effective investigations, improved cooperation between police and prosecutors, and fewer intrusions into victims’ personal lives.
Unfortunately, this is far from guaranteed. Independent oversight from academic experts has been crucial to this scheme, and multi-year funding for this, and for victims’ support services, is needed if changes are to be embedded. Yet ministers have neither committed to this nor appointed a successor to Dame Vera Baird KC, who left her post as victims’ commissioner last year. There were 199,021 sexual offences reported to police in the 12 months to September 2022 – the highest-ever number. At the same time, faith in the police has been undermined by multiple sexual assaults committed by officers, while the court backlog continues to deter complainants.
Many of the actions now being taken, including the reinstatement of specialist officers, are attempts to put right past mistakes. Confidence in the system’s capacity to deliver justice for victims of these offences remains low for good reason.
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