Sex offenders ‘evading justice’

A total of 179 crimes of sexual violence were committed against men and boys in Somerset in the year up to June 2021, with six out of ten offenders escaping unpunished.

Of the 179 attacks, 44 were victims of rape and a further 135 of sexual assault.

Of the 411 cases Avon and Somerset Police have recorded over the past twelve months, 56 per cent were all concluded without anybody facing any kind of justice.

The reasons behind this are varied; issues with evidence, prosecution being deemed not to be in the public interest, or because a suspect was not found all being reasons for inconclusive investigations.

Rape survivor Alex Feis-bryce, chief executive officer of Survivors UK, said: “The official recorded figures for sexual violence are always just the tip of the iceberg as the vast majority of survivors, whatever their gender identity, do not report to the police for a range of reasons.

“For men and boys, the very fact that how we talk about sexual violence as a society tends to focus on men as perpetrators and women as victims has a very powerful silencing effect”.

This is compounded by the fact only seven cases - all of sexual assault - were concluded with a suspect being charged in Somerset last year.

He added: “The tragic reality of this is that the majority of survivors suffer in silence and the majority of offenders get away with their crimes”.

Within Somerset, men and boys were most likely to be a victim of rape or sexual assault in the Somerset Community Support Area (CSP).

Nationwide, police forces recorded a total of 15,835 offences against men, 6,181 of those being rape and 9,654 being sexual assault.

Despite Somerset seeing a drop of 9 per cent on the previous year, the national total rose by nearly 1,000.

Victim Support’s assistant director, Jeffrey Demarco, said: “It is of extreme concern that, despite a notable increase in rape and incidents of sexual assault on men and boys reported over the past year, only 2 per cent of these cases led to a suspect being charged. This is unacceptably low.”

Mr Demarco added: “These poor prosecution rates have a devastating effect on victims’ physical and mental wellbeing, but can also deter survivors from engaging with the wider justice process”.