Crown Prosecution Service lawyers trivialise teen sexual abuse, report says

Lawyers in the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales have trivialised teen sexual abuse, are “obsessed” about the credibility of rape victims and used victim-blaming language, according to a critical official examination into how the service deals with serious sexual crimes.

The report is the first major independent examination into how the CPS prosecutes rape since a promised overhaul of the criminal justice system. It warns of a reliance on “new myths” about modern sexual practices, and says mental health is still acting as a barrier to victims receiving justice.

The report – expected to be put into the public domain this week – comes almost three years after ministers apologised unreservedly to victims, following a catastrophic decline in rape prosecutions in England and Wales since 2016.

In 2021 the government’s rape review ordered a raft of sweeping changes to the police and CPS. A radical new operating model, under the banner of Operation Soteria, told officers and prosecutors to root out engrained rape myths and focus on predatory behaviour rather than victims’ credibility. Some key targets – including getting the volume of police referrals and cases reaching court to 2016 levels – have been met.

The report was produced by a team of academics at Warwick University who carried out interviews with prosecutors, police, ISVAs (independent sexual violence advisers) and reviewed CPS case files between July 2022 and November 2023. It states that there has been progress in the CPS, with ISVAs and police describing closer working and a mindset shift towards building and charging more cases.

But they also found “an ongoing disconnect” between lawyers’ understanding of the way rape victims react to trauma and the dangers of relying on myths and stereotypes “and the way in which cases were understood and evaluated in practice”.

The Guardian understands that the CPS has been left reeling by the findings. Staff have been told that “several of the findings may be difficult to read” and show the need for improvements in prosecutors’ approach to rape casework, according to internal communications.

Senior leaders told staff: “The findings highlight examples of rape assumptions and misconceptions being applied in some cases. We want to be clear this does not align with our desired approach to handling rape cases.”

A source inside the CPS said: “We need a better quality-control process, which makes sure we actually address flaws in decision making. I think we also just have to recognise that some prosecutors currently working in Rasso (rape and serious sexual offences) units have deeply embedded attitudes, are simply not suited to the work and should be reassigned.”

The CPS said it had accepted the interim findings of the report, which were built into a new national operating model for rape, launched in July last year. It has also commissioned research into the public’s understanding of rape and consent.

Among the most serious concerns raised by academics were examples of prosecutors not taking reports of non-penetrative offences by young complainants “sufficiently seriously” when the suspect was also young, noting “a tendency to trivialise as ‘banter’ amongst young people that which would be considered to be predatory behaviour among adults”.

Referring to the increase in young girls coming forward to report such crimes, a CPS prosecutor interviewed by researchers said they were “doing a disservice to the cases that really need to be investigated … because they’re getting attention.”

An ISVA said of specialist rape lawyers: “I’ve heard some of them say loads of them are just making it up, you know, it’s teenagers being teenagers”.

Authors also raised concerns about potential reliance on new rape myths around ‘modern’ sexual practices, like the use of “casual sex” dating sites, and heard that prosecutors sometimes saw these as barriers to charging a suspect. Authors warned that “well-established tropes regarding the ‘respectable’ victim” were “potentially resurfacing in new forms”.

Despite prosecutors telling authors they were aware and trained on rape myths – other people interviewed for the report said some prosecutors’ still had an “obsession” with victim credibility, used victim-blaming language, misunderstood the impacts of trauma and conflated mental ill-health with a lack of victim credibility.

In one case – despite no mention of mental health problems – a lawyer said “some references that make [me] think she possibly has mental health problems as well, on top of her multiple drug problems”, and this would make establishing her credibility “difficult”.

“This report backs up what we’ve long known, that rape myths and stereotypes are deeply embedded in the criminal justice system,” said Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition.

Prosecutors also demonstrated a lack of understanding of coercive control, said authors. Referencing a historical allegation where the complainant had stayed in contact with the suspect, one said to a police officer: “What is she in contact with him for if she has been raped by him?” Another said of an exchange of text messages: “You wouldn’t say that if you had been abused, not in a million years”.

Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said such examples revealed that while the CPS has made progress on challenging myths and stereotypes, there was evidence of “decision-making and practice in the courtroom which is inconsistent with their own guidelines”, adding: “Clearly more effective training is needed but also some accountability so that those that are failing victims of rape understand the consequences.”

Baljit Ubhey, CPS director of strategy and policy, said the CPS had commissioned research to help transform the service and “ensure we are open and transparent”.

She said prosecutors were being trained to tackle misconceptions about rape but the report highlighted “that we have more to do”.

“We are committed to ensuring that this work is prioritised as our new approach is put in place across England and Wales,” she said. “We can see that the genuine partnership with police colleagues is bearing fruit but we know we still have a long way to go to drive lasting change.”