‘Grand jury’ plan to protect rape victims
RAPE cases should be investigated through a grand jury-style system to encourage victims to take attackers to court, a senior judge has proposed.
Peter Murphy, a circuit judge, said the process – similar to investigating magistrates in Europe – would provide victims with greater privacy by enabling a judge to decide what information about a person’s sexual past could be disclosed to police and prosecutors.
Mr Murphy, who has trained prosecutors and judges in France, has put forward his proposal to combat a collapse in prosecutions. Less than 2 per cent of offences result in a conviction, partly because many victims drop out before they come to court.
A leaked Cabinet Office report – produced as part of a Government review of rape – found that half of all victims dropped out of investigations after being faced with invasive disclosure demands, a lower likelihood of securing a conviction and lengthy delays in seeing their case brought to court.
His plan has been welcomed by Ann Coffey, a former MP who has campaigned on rape issues, and an alliance of women’s groups that have launched a legal case against the Crown Prosecution Service for its alleged failure to effectively prosecute rape.
Mr Murphy said: “A professional investigating magistrate can assess privately, not only the strength of the evidence, but also the extent to which the case requires disclosure to the defence of the complainant’s sexual history or social media activity.
“There is one important caveat. The system only works if it is clearly understood that the investigation is being carried out not with a view to incriminating a particular individual, but with a view to establishing the truth of what happened in the interest of all parties, including any suspects, and of the public generally.”
Government sources said they would consider any proposal that might improve the handling of rape cases, but there were no plans at present to reform the court process.
Sarah Green, a director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “We welcome a willingness to really look into what could work and provide justice in rape cases.
“We should listen to those with comparative experience, and we should absolutely be looking outwards at how other systems respond to the challenges. More inquisitorial approaches are still vulnerable to the prejudices and ‘rape myths’ which undermine rape trials, but they are worth comparison and consideration because we can’t stay where we are.”
Ms Coffey said anything that brought evidence together at the beginning of the process was to be welcomed to avoid unnecessary exposure of personal sexual information in court. “It should not be the case that women are being asked to prove their innocence almost as if they were on trial,” she said.