Fall in prosecutions for rape labelled ‘appalling’

CAMPAIGNERS have argued rape is becoming “effectively decriminalised” as “appalling” new figures show prosecutions for the crime in England and Wales have slumped, despite record volumes of cases reported to police.

The annual Violence Against Women and Girls report from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) shows there were just 1,925 convictions for rape or an alternative lesser offence during the financial year 2018-19, down from 2,635 in the previous 12 months – a drop of 26.9%.

This is despite the number of rape claims dealt with annually by police in England and Wales rising from 35,847 to 57,882 during the last four years.

It means around 3.3% of all reported rapes end in a conviction.

The Rape Crisis (England and

Wales) organisation said a “complete overhaul” of the criminal justice system was “more essential and urgent than ever”.

A spokeswoman said: “For the second year in a row, official CPS data reveals a continuing and deeply troubling decline in criminal justice outcomes for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, rape and all forms of sexual violence.

“Because the Independent Sexual Violence Advocates (ISVAs) across our specialist Rape Crisis network have continued to witness this decline first-hand, today’s figures do not come as a surprise to us.

“The figures do however reinforce our conviction that a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system in relation to sexual violence and abuse, which we have called for – for many years – is more essential and urgent than ever.”

The report comes as a coalition of women’s organisations, represented by the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ), gets ready to launch a judicial review case against the CPS over claims cases are being “dropped” without good reason.

Campaigners have previously argued so-called “weak” cases are ditched in order to improve notoriously low rape conviction rates.

But the CPS said the drop in rape charges was due to “a number of factors”, including a reduction in the number of referrals from the police to the CPS, and an increase in the volume of time-consuming digital data.

Lawyer Harriet Wistrich, the CWJ founder, labelled the statistics “appalling” on Twitter and argued the “fault lies first and foremost with the CPS”.

She suggested on Radio 4’s Today programme there had been changes to the “merits-based approach” of prosecuting rape towards a “bookmaker’s choice”, where you “kind of second guess what a jury are going to decide”. But Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill QC denied there had been any changes, telling Today: “We prosecute on the basis of the code for prosecutors that specifically says that we operate on the basis that juries are objective and impartial and reasonable.”

Figures show the charge rate for rape – the decision to press ahead with a prosecution – dropped from 64.3% in 2014-15 to 48.2% this year.