Rape victims to get phones back in 24 hours as police shift focus

ALL rape victims will have their phones returned within 24 hours by 2024, as the Government seeks to combat “digital strip searches” and increase convictions for sex attacks.

Nearly half of the 43 police forces in England and Wales will commit to meet the time limit from the end of this year as they adopt a new approach that focuses rape investigations on the suspect rather than testing the credibility of the victim.

Five police forces including the Metropolitan Police are already piloting the strategy where victims get their phones back within 24 hours – or, if that is not possible, a “swap out phone” that has the same number and all their personal data on it.

The five are part of Operation Soteria, which prioritises the investigation of a suspect’s actions, patterns of behaviour and movements rather than conducting intrusive probes into the private life of the victim to establish their credibility. A further 14 forces will roll out Soteria from the end of the year.

Ministry of Justice (MOJ) sources said the aim was to combat “digital strip searches” where police have been accused of taking “excessive amounts of personal data” from victims’ phones.

These have been blamed for a near doubling in the past five years – to more than 40 per cent – in the proportion of rape victims dropping out of prosecutions.

“Transforming the way that rape investigations are handled, with a focus on the suspect as opposed to the victim, should reduce victim attrition, reduce the likelihood of reoffending and make investigations more thorough and effective,” said the MOJ.

Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, has also pledged that all rape victims will be able to pre-record their evidence on video to avoid the trauma of appearing in court, a move that has been shown to boost prosecution rates.

Ministers have set a target to return the volume of rape cases resulting in suspects being charged to 2016 levels. Then, the Crown Prosecution Service completed 4,643 prosecutions but by 2020 that number fell to 1,490. Of cases reported to the police, 13 per cent resulted in a charge in 2016. This year it was under 2 per cent.

Today the Government will publish the first scorecards to pinpoint “blockages” in the criminal justice system.

In an exclusive article for The Telegraph online, Emily Hunt, a rape victim and independent adviser to the Government on victims, said the first scorecard would show “we still have a long way to go”, noting that the likelihood of a rapist being charged had halved in the past five years and was now “vanishingly unlikely”.