Rapists free to strike again as few face trial, warns London’s Victims’ Commissioner

The number of rape complainants in London abandoning their attempt to obtain justice has risen to 65 per cent
The review found that 64% of alleged victims withdrew their complaint within the first 30 days of reporting the rape (Picture posed by model/Gareth Fuller/PA)
PA Archive
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Rapists are being left free to strike again because of the “unacceptably low” number of offenders being prosecuted, London’s Victims’ Commissioner warned on Tuesday as she called for new measures to encourage women to pursue cases to court.

Claire Waxman said she was alarmed to find from an analysis of 450 cases in the capital that the number of rape complainants abandoning their attempt to obtain justice has risen to 65 per cent.

She said one reason was a lack of confidence among many rape complainants about how their phone data would be examine and how long they would be without their mobiles.

She said a frequent failure to provide early support from an independent sexual violence advocate was another cause of women dropping out, as well as what some complainants regarded as insensitive or dismissive questioning by police.

Ms Waxman said the result was that only five per cent of reported rapes ended in a trial with many dangerous offenders were being left free to target new victims.

Warning in a report published on Tuesday of “the unacceptably low levels of rape prosecutions”, she adds: “Improving the confidence and safety a victim feels in the criminal justice system is not only potentially important for their individual, personal recovery, but has implications for wider public safety.

“We know that rape and sexual offences are often crimes that are repeated by perpetrators, making it crucial that the criminal justice system can identify perpetrators and intervene to prevent them causing further harm.”

In further findings, Ms Waxman questions what she says is an “emerging narrative from justice agencies” that some complainants withdraw support for prosecution because “they simply wanted to ‘get it off their chest’ but never intended to pursue justice”.

She concedes that this might be true for some but that “this explanation differs from what victims/survivors and those supporting them tell us” and suggests that the real reason is that they felt “dissuaded or pressured” to abandon their efforts to see their attacker convicted.

Ms Waxman makes a number of recommendations in response, including speeding up the examination of mobile phone data, and providing replacement mobiles if a device has to be held for more than a day. She also calls for stricter safeguards over the supply of “third party” material about complainants obtained from social services, schools, health services, or similar bodies.

Ms Waxman added that the overall picture of the handling of rape cases in London was “shocking and worrying” and “highlighted how deeply entrenched rape myths and stereotypes are in our criminal justice system and how far we still have to go in order to restore trust and confidence that rape victims will get the justice they deserve.

“What we need to see, urgently, is vastly increased support for all rape victims right from the very start of reporting and the onset of an investigation.

“There also needs to be major improvements to the police process of requesting, searching and returning a victim’s mobile phone, and we need police and the Crown Prosecution Service to urgently embed an ‘offender-centric’ approach and tackle the rape myths and victims blaming that, sadly, remain endemic.”

Commander Melanie Dales, the Met lead on public protection, said police were striving to provide “the best possible service to victims of rape and sexual offences.

“We are absolutely determined to increase the number of perpetrators brought to justice by improving our processes, investigations and victim care, all the time working with partners across the criminal justice system.

“Sexual offence investigations are some of the most complex police deal with. We know there is more to do to increase the number of cases brought before the courts.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in