Rapists left free to carry out repeat attacks because of crisis in prosecuting, victims’ commissioner warns

Justice in crisis: The justice system in the UK is straining under the pressure of an unprecedented crisis. The Standard is looking into problems within the justice system and how they can be fixed
Rape victims survey
A victim waits to be seen by the doctor in the medical room at a specialist rape clinic (Picture posed by model)
Gareth Fuller/PA Wire
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Rapists are being left free to carry out repeat attacks because of the continuing crisis in prosecutions, the victims’ commissioner warned today.

Dame Vera Baird said it was “perfectly clear” that some offenders were “getting away with it” because of the record low number of convictions being achieved in the courts.

She said this was “denying justice” to women and men who had been raped but also leaving others vulnerable to repeat attacks by predators acting in the same way as the London black cab rapist John Worboys and other prolific offenders. She said action was needed to address the problems, including a bolder approach by the Crown Prosecution Service to taking suspects to court and an end to what she claimed is a practice of filtering out of potentially difficult cases.

CPS figures released in the summer showed that 1,493 people accused of rape were convicted of the offence or another crime in England and Wales during the year to the end of March. That was half the total three years earlier and a record low. One average, a staggering 145 rapes are reported each week in London only for the claims to be withdrawn.

Dame Vera, a barrister and former solicitor general under Labour, said rape complainants should also be provided with “professional befrienders”, known as independent sexual violence advisers, who could help them rebuild their lives after an attack and improve the chances of them staying willing to give evidence in court.

She added that complainants should also be given the right to independent legal advice whenever private data about their lives, including the contents of mobile phones, was due to be given to defence lawyers. The aim would be to allow them to challenge the disclosure of inappropriate material that had no direct relevance to the case.

Rape victims survey
Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird
PA

The Government has been conducting a review into how rape allegations are handled. It has yet to be completed, although one report has suggested No 10 is considering imposing targets on prosecutors to try to ensure that more charges are brought.  

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC, has issued a “five-year blueprint” to his lawyers in response. Its aim is to reduce the gap between the number of allegations made and cases reaching court through measures such as closer working between police and prosecutors and clear advice to investigators on lines of inquiry.

‘Black cap rapist’ John Worboys, who police believe may have attacked more than 100 women  
PA

But Dame Vera said a recent survey  she had conducted of rape complainants showed the system was in crisis, with only 14 per cent of the women who responded confident of getting justice.  

She added: “I don’t suggest that every allegation of rape is going to produce a conviction, but prosecutions now are 1.4 per cent of the more than 55,000 complaints of rape that there are.

"If you are only prosecuting that number, and getting smaller convictions, it’s clear that some people will be getting away with it. What worries me is that rape tends to be a repeat offence. As we’ve seen with Jimmy Savile and all the recent scandals, these are people who carry on until they are stopped.

"When we are not prosecuting somebody today it is not just denying justice to the person who may well have been raped, but we may be freeing somebody who is going to carry on. John Worboys raped and raped until he was finally caught.”

Dame Vera said prosecutors to counter the threat of “myths and stereotypes” being used to discredit complainants and to avoid giving up on such cases because of the potential difficulty that this might cause during a trial.

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