Rape victims 'failed by police and courts'

More and more rape suspects are escaping justice each year despite record numbers of women prepared to come forward to report a sex crime.

A damning report into the investigation and prosecution of rape cases in England and Wales shows that victims are being failed at almost every stage of the criminal justice system.

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The findings, which are published today, represent a major blow for the Government which has introduced new measures to try to improve the conviction rate for rape cases.

Between 2002 and 2005, 4,000 more women have reported rape while the proportion of suspects being convicted has fallen from 6.57 per cent to 5.31 per cent.

In a joint report of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, the authors concluded that many police officers and prosecutors were only paying lip-service to new policies aimed at increasing the very small proportion of cases that get to court.

Of particular concern is the high number of allegations reported to the police which are then wrongly categorised as "no crime". The inspectors found police wrongly recorded rape allegations as "no crimes" in nearly a third of cases.

Between half and two thirds of victims find that their case does not progress beyond the investigation stage. A further unspecified proportion of cases are dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service, mostly on grounds of lack of evidence. And of the final number that do reach court half end in the acquittal of the defendant.

The inspectorates described these as unacceptably high levels of "attrition" with correspondingly low levels of police detection. They said: "At the same time there has been a progressive increase in the number of rape cases reported to the police for more than 20 years.

"This trend shows no sign of slowing, with an increase in recorded rape over the same four-year period of 40.9 per cent, from 9,734 to 13,712."

The report said that in some cases police officers were still being influenced by the behaviour of the complainant when she first contacted the police.

There was evidence to show that officers had decided not to record a crime because the complainant had been drinking or because her account of the rape appeared inconsistent.

"There is an over-estimation of the scale of false allegations among practitioners and subjective judgments are still being made about victim credibility," the 175-page study said.

It outlined concerns about specialist doctors used to examine rape victims. There were poor examination facilities, delays due to staff shortages, inappropriate samples were taken and a lack of expertise, the paper said.

But the overall position was made more difficult to understand because of the wide variations in the treatment and prosecution of rape cases across the country. Rape detection rates for police areas varied between 7.0 per cent and 60.4 per cent in 2004/05.

Ministers admitted that the conviction rate for rape was too low and promised to fund further measures to tackle the problem.

But Dr Katherine Rake, the director of the Fawcett Society, said: "Wholesale reform is needed to give women confidence in the system, deliver justice to victims of rape and prevent violence against women in the first place."

The damning statistics

* Only 5.3 per cent of reported rapes end in a conviction.

* Reported rapes increased from 9,734 to 13,712 between 2001 and 2005.

* Two thirds of reported rapes do not proceed beyond investigation.

* 86 per cent of reported rape victims know their suspected attacker.

* Between a third and a half of cases that reach court end in acquittal.

* The detection rate of reported rapes dropped from 41 per cent to 30 per cent between 2001 and 2005.

* 32 per cent of rapes reported to the police were wrongly recorded as 'no crime'.

* In cases in which the CPS offered no evidence nearly a third should have gone to trial.