Only one in five suspect rape cases to be examined
Critics say hundreds more convictions should be checked by commission for miscarriages of justice
A REVIEW into rape convictions, ordered in the wake of last year’s disclosure scandal, will only examine a fraction of the cases where a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) recently announced it would revisit 306 convictions on its books to identify if vital evidence had been missed during the original trials.
Concerns were raised about the safety of hundreds of rape convictions following the collapse of a series of high profile cases, when it emerged that the police and prosecutors had failed to disclose vital evidence that proved the defendant’s innocence. The vast amount of digital data now stored on mobile devices means investigators have to spend many hours ensuring they have identified all the evidence that is relevant.
In December a judge halted the trial of Liam Allan, 22, a student, after it emerged that his accuser had bombarded friends with hundreds of messages setting out her rape fantasies.
As well as an urgent review by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) into live cases, the CCRC announced it would also be looking in detail at all 306 rape cases referred to it between April 2016 and March this year.
Announcing the review in July, Richard Foster, the chairman of the CCRC, said: “We believe the public needs to be assured that disclosure in past criminal cases – as well as in live prosecutions and future criminal proceedings – can stand up to scrutiny.”
However, an internal memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that rather than examining all 306 cases in detail, only 61 will be explored in depth. Following an initial review, a 20 per cent sample of the cases will then be selected at random, with investigators going through the police and CPS files in detail to see if there is any evidence that renders the conviction unsafe.
Legal campaigners have warned that only examining a fraction of the cases means they are in danger of only identifying a fraction of the problem.
Emily Bolton, legal director of the Centre for Criminal Appeals, a law charity, said: “The CCRC must start conducting comprehensive investigations. Until then, miscarriages of justice will go undetected and public confidence in our justice system will continue to decline.”
Samuel Armstrong, a former aide to a Tory MP, who was cleared of raping a Commons worker last year, said: “Recent CPS failures were so catastrophic that a top to bottom review, not a statistical exercise, is needed.”
But a CCRC spokesman said: “If what we find in any way suggests that there is a need to revisit the criteria or the approach, we will do so.”