One high-profile case of a falsely accused man should not obscure the wider truth about rape trials

The general bias in the system has long been that the actual victims of these life-changing crimes of violence are the ones in the weaker position, and the conviction rates for rape remain dismally low in a culture where women are often disbelieved

Liam Allan was falsely accused of rape and acquitted of all charges after it came to light that vital evidence had been ignored (Facebook)

For a crime that is among the most serious that can be committed, the collapse of two rape cases is more than disturbing. That there were shortcomings in the disclosure of important evidence during the proceedings seems clear.

One police officer appears to have been connected to both cases. This is something that the Metropolitan Police are, rightly, urgently investigating, and the force is also wise to extend that study to all outstanding sex-crime cases. They might also usefully review some others in the recent past, if intelligence suggests that something similar may have befallen an accused.

The police argue that, in one of the collapsed cases, the further disclosure was triggered by the defence serving a new case statement, which led to a further review, so it was a case of the system working. Nevertheless the public – and all those currently involved – need to have faith in the criminal justice system. It would be reassuring, depending on the outcome of the Met’s finding, if other forces were to follow its example. We obviously need to know if something is going badly wrong in rape cases.

Some have claimed that the shift in public opinion and the climate surrounding these issues in recent years is responsible for what has happened. It is sometimes said that the police now routinely regard every accuser as a “victim”, and “believe” them and distrust the accused, which violates the principle of natural justice and, in practical terms, can lead to behaviour that can actually increase the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice or of cases collapsing.

It is perfectly apparent that not every allegation of sexual misconduct is truthful, and there’s no doubt some are entirely fabricated and others partly or entirely motivated by malice. Yet in the area of sexual crimes, the vast majority of those who find themselves involved in such a process do not do so frivolously.

The general bias in the system has long been that the actual victims of these life-changing crimes of violence are the ones in the weaker position. Historically, they have been unwilling to come forward because, for too long, their privacy and anonymity were not protected. Now they are protected, and necessarily so, the victims still have to convince the police and, in due course, the Crown Prosecution Service that a crime has been committed and of the prospects of a successful prosecution.

It is an ordeal, to be taken through the process, with intimate forensic examinations, past sexual history and aggressive cross-examining, dragging on for months on end. Vexatious claims of sexual abuse or attack are rare indeed. The pain and embarrassment is simply too great for that to be plausible. The Jimmy Savile scandal proved the way that even hundreds of victims can fail to be listened to, and subsequent revelations have only reinforced that truth.

The few high-profile cases that have emerged of men being wrongly prosecuted should not obscure the fact that most failures of justice in sexual crimes fall against the accusers, usually women and, too often, children. That is the systematic bias that remains in the system, with conviction rates still unrealistically low.

In the current controversy, the police and lawyers have pleaded that the problem may not be one of competence or attitudes, but rather of lack of resources, and particularly so in the digital age, when records of phone calls, text messages, social media and emails can be so vast as to make proper checking of them near impossible. That may be true, or it may be some sort of excuse, but if it is true that police teams are overwhelmed by the volume of digital data, then the rules about disclosure should be altered so that the defence team of lawyers can be briefed or have access to that material if there is a reasonable possibility that it would help prove the innocence of the accused. There must be some formulation of procedures that can help prevent the prospect of miscarriages of justice. That, after all, is what the criminal justice system and the rules of evidence are supposed to be all about.

Everything that we have learned in recent years about high-profile cases of so-called VIP child abuse and the abuse of positions of power by people in politics, showbusiness and elsewhere points to a culture in the West of cover-up and neglect of the victims, almost universally female and often very young. It is they who, demonstrably, have had their lives ruined without any hope of redress and justice.

That situation may now change for the better. If so, we need to keep at the forefront of our minds that untrue claims of rape are extremely rare, and that too many sexual attackers get away with it.