Now police chiefs want ‘digital strip search’ plan for rape victims torn up

A FORM that requires rape victims to hand their phones to officers should be torn up, police commissioners said yesterday.

The row over the data consent form – dubbed a ‘digital strip search’ – deepened as the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) said it would undermine the police, prosecutors and the justice system.

In an unusual move, it condemned police chiefs for signing off the ‘truly awful’ document, which lets officers trawl through victims’ texts, emails, photographs and social media. The ‘digital device extraction’ form has already been sent to 43 police forces in England and Wales.

But there has been a backlash from MPs and campaigners, who said guidance telling victims to hand over their mobiles or risk their attacker going free was ‘a public relations disaster’.

The APCC’s elected members hold police forces to account, set their objectives and appoint chief constables. David Lloyd, its criminal justice lead, told The Observer: ‘We have no doubt that this form, as it stands, should be withdrawn, or it is likely to result in a loss of confidence in the police, the Criminal Prosecution Service and the criminal justice system more broadly.’

Its deputy victims lead, Julia Mulligan, who revealed this year that she was raped when she was 15, said: ‘It is hard enough having to live through a sexual attack or rape without having to expose oneself to this “in return” for an investigation.

‘To be told you have no chance of justice without doing so is truly awful.’ Dame Vera Baird, who is the APCC’s victims lead, added: ‘Rape and sex offence complainants are telling us that, unless they grant unfettered access to their mobile devices, they are told that their case will not be proceeded with. While we recognise that police must pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry and disclose anything that may undermine the prosecution or assist the defence, this form has been called a digital strip search by campaigners.’

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) signed off the move. Nick Ephgrave, the NPCC’s lead for criminal justice, has said he is ‘happy to revise’ the form and has agreed to meet policing minister Nick Hurd.

Many forces already have a backlog of devices to examine, with officers waiting up to seven months to download the contents of mobile phones for evidence.

Mark Stokes, head of the digital, cyber and communications forensics unit at Scotland Yard, said the force ‘cannot meet the demand currently with what we have’.

Uproar over rape victims forced to endure ‘digital strip searches’

The Mail, April 29