Rape victims ‘seen as time-wasters’ by police

Officers are quick to dismiss traumatised women as liars, leaked Home Office report shows

POLICE involved in rape investigations are often quick to dismiss women as liars and time-wasters, leaked findings from a Home Office study suggest.

Officers incorrectly used the word “false” to refer to cases with only “minor falsehoods or inconsistencies” – going against a “trauma-informed understanding of victim evidence”, researchers found.

The findings, from Operation Soteria, based on the “pilot” forces of the Metropolitan Police, Avon and Somerset and Durham are also said to include a frustration that victims are “wasting” police time, with some officers saying they would like to “come down harder” on victims who make “false” reports.

A survey of almost 200 officers in the Met found that only one in four agreed that “very few” reports of rape and sexual assault are untrue, according to Whitehall sources.

The results of the Home Office investigation have not yet been made public, but one MP familiar with the findings said they are “profoundly troubling”.

Several sources have suggested that publication of the report has been delayed to avoid political embarrassment.

The revelation comes as charities and rape crisis centres today write to the Government, to express concern that key results from the academic-led inquiry are being “shielded” from public scrutiny, saying the information has been available since January.

The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer has puts policing and misogyny under the spotlight – particularly at the Met.

The police and criminal justice system has also faced pressure over low prosecution and rape conviction rates.

In the 12 months to September last year, only 1.3 per cent of the 63,136 rape reports recorded by police resulted in a suspect being charged.

A Home Office spokesman told The

Daily Telegraph that Operation Soteria was “still in progress and a full evaluation will be conducted at the appropriate time”.

One MP told The Telegraph: “The attitudes expressed by officers in the research are profoundly troubling, as they suggest greater scrutiny of the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators.”

A spokesman from the Met said that rape is an “abhorrent crime” and encouraged all victims to report crimes which would be “thoroughly investigated”. A spokesman for Durham

Constabulary claimed that the Soteria researchers “did not identify a single case over the past four years in which the victim had not been listened to and their evidence taken seriously”.

Avon and Somerset have previously highlighted how they launched Operation Bluestone in June 2021, which was designed to improve how they investigated rape cases.

It is understood the Home Office will fund Operation Soteria for a further 12 months, allowing the programme to expand to 14 more police forces.