Rape evidence flaws may have put hundreds of innocents in jail
MPS question Alison Saunders, watched by man whose life was left in ruins despite acquittal
crime correspondent
HUNDREDS of innocent people could be behind bars for rape and other serious offences because of the failure to disclose crucial evidence, legal experts said last night.
The warning came after the Crown Prosecution Service was forced to drop 47 serious sex assault cases in six weeks, in the wake of a review that found key material had not been shared with defence lawyers. The review was ordered in January after several rape cases collapsed at the last minute due to failures by the police and prosecutors to hand over evidence that could have proved a defendant’s innocence.
Appearing before MPS to explain the scale of the problem, Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said her staff were struggling to cope with the amount of digital evidence obtained from smartphones. Apologising
THE young man sitting directly behind Alison Saunders yesterday as she was being grilled by MPS could have been forgiven the weary, resigned look on his face.
Sam Armstrong, a senior aide to a Conservative MP, was acquitted in December of raping and sexually assaulting a young woman within the Palace of Westminster.
But here was Ms Saunders, the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), on the same premises apologising for failings in the criminal justice system after a review found 47 rape or sexual offence cases had been halted because evidence had not been properly shared with the defence.
Mr Armstrong, 24, was charged and put on trial but cleared after a seven-day hearing. Crucial evidence was only disclosed eight working days before the court case that showed his accuser, a woman in her 20s, had tipped off a tabloid newspaper just hours after making the rape claim, while psychiatric records she wanted to suppress showed she suffered depression and anxiety.
Mr Armstrong blames Ms Saunders and the prosecuting regime she presided over for bringing the case against him. Despite his acquittal, Mr Armstrong lost his main job, faced a £200,000 legal fee, and saw his “life turned upside down”.
He said: “The failings are part of a systemic culture of non-disclosure that began when Alison Saunders called for a rise in conviction rates for rape when she took charge of the Crown Prosecution Service.”
On her first day in the job as DPP in November 2013, she made it clear her priority was to drive up the conviction rate by bringing more such cases to court.
The country’s most senior prosecutor rarely gives newspaper interviews but she told the London Evening Standard on her first day: “We have to be realistic: we’re never going to get to 100 per cent because quite rightly in some cases where we think there’s a realistic chance of conviction, the jury will have a different view. But what we want to do is make sure we get to trial...”
When Ms Saunders took charge, the conviction rate for rape was running at 63 per cent. It has actually dropped in the intervening time to 57 per cent for cases that reach court.
On the face of it, Ms Saunders’ drive for convictions in rape cases has been a failure. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. The most recent figures show 5,190 rape cases brought to court and 2,991 convictions. When Ms Saunders took over at the CPS, there were 2,333 convictions, 658 fewer.
Rape complaints have also risen hugely in the same period. The culture has changed – women are now much more likely to go to the police. There were 41,150 reported rapes in 2017 compared with 16,374 in 2013.
The startling figures show the difficulty in actually getting allegations made to police to trial and the even greater difficulty in securing a conviction. In 1980, one in three reported rapes ended in conviction. Today it is about one in 20.
Forty years ago, most rape complaints that came to court tended to be rapes where the attacker was not known to the victim. In the 21st century, the complainant is more likely to know the alleged perpetrator.
Juries must decide whether consent was given for sex to take place; police and prosecutors must also decide what information to disclose to the accused.
It isn’t a problem that has vexed solely Ms Saunders. The country is reckoned to have one of the lowest conviction rates in the world although comparisons are difficult because this country’s adversarial system differs markedly from the Continent’s inquisitorial process.
In 2009, Jacqui Smith, the Labour government’s home secretary, was appalled and alarmed to discover that the UK was bottom of 33 European states with just 6.5 per cent of rape cases reported to police ending in conviction compared with 25 per cent in France. She ordered an investigation into how rape complaints were being handled by police and prosecutors.
Under guidance brought in under Ms Saunders’ watch, men need to convince police and prosecutors that a woman consented to sex in order to avoid arrest and charge. But in court the prosecution must follow due process and prove that consent was absent.
And in the modern era come the problems presented by social media and mobile phones. Huge amounts of information are stored on platforms like Facebook and Instagram that the police simply do not have the manpower to investigate. Mobile phones can contain thousands of text messages that may or may not persuade a jury of a man’s guilt.
The police have to comb through social media accounts and consider what, if any, material is relevant.
The CPS makes the final decision on what can be passed on to a defendant and their legal team.
It gets more complicated. The rules have changed in the wake of the fiasco over the failure of police to properly investigate Jimmy Savile, possibly Britain’s worst ever sex offender, in his lifetime. Allegations of sexual abuse must be believed and complainants treated as victims.
Many think the pendulum has swung too far in favour of the accusers rather than the accused. Tana Adkin QC, a member of the Criminal Bar Association’s executive committee, explained that part of the problem was that the police and prosecutors were now more focused on the complainant than on pursuing justice.
“There has been a desire to protect the complainant, to preserve their privacy, rather than looking at the data for what it is,” she said. “There has been a complainant-centred approach rather than a justice-centred approach.”
‘In some cases where we think there’s a chance of conviction, the jury will have a different view’