Police responsible for crisis in rape prosecutions, says DPP head
POLICE are to blame for the crisis over rape prosecutions, the director of public prosecutions has said, as he complained too few cases were being brought to prosecutors by officers.
Max Hill, head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), admitted there was a “crisis of public trust” over how the criminal justice system deals with rape and sexual assaults.
But, asked why only 1.3 per cent of the 63,000 reported rapes resulted in a charge, he said: “What is clear from those statistics is that too few of the complaints of rape are ever reaching the attention of the CPS. [Too few] are ever receiving the CPS services of taking what may appear to be a difficult case and converting it into a charge case in court.”
The number of attacks recorded by police in the year to September hit a record high, with 63,136 reported rapes and 170,973 sexual assaults.
But a CPS update, published yesterday, said that a very low proportion were referred to prosecutors, with 2,747 cases sent by police to the CPS in 202021 out of a total of 55,709 recorded rapes.
Mr Hill cited examples where newly formed CPS scrutiny panels had identified cases abandoned by police but which could be prosecuted.
“In most cases they will be right but in some – and I have seen working examples of this – we will be able to say: ‘Have you thought about this angle on the evidence?” he said. He said he was “frustrated” that damage to public confidence in the police, caused in part by the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer last March, may make victims reluctant to come forward and support prosecutions.
“I am... frustrated that for people at their time of greatest need, they may question whether it is right to come forward, to make a complaint to the police,” he said. “They may question whether the impact on their daily life is too great for them to support the prosecution that will follow.”
Mr Hill’s comments came as he unveiled a progress update on the CPS’S five-year blueprint to reverse falling rape prosecutions, saying it would leave “no stone unturned” to tackle the crisis.