Police sending a third fewer rape cases to prosecutors, figures show

Rape victims are finding it increasingly difficult to access justice as police refer fewer cases to the Crown Prosecution Service and fewer allegations of rape are being prosecuted and convicted, according to new figures.

The number of cases referred by the police for charging decisions fell by 32% in the year to September 2019, while prosecutions by the CPS fell 26% and convictions dropped 21%, according to Guardian analysis of quarterly CPS prosecution data.

The victims’ commissioner for England and Wales has called on the attorney general to reject a recent report by the CPS inspectorate (HMCPSI) that concluded the service was not to blame for a precipitous drop in rape charges. Dame Vera Baird urged Geoffrey Cox QC to carry out an in-depth inquiry into the quality of CPS decision-making.

Baird said no “plausible explanation” for why the CPS charge rate had dropped by 52.2% in two years had been offered.

“I travel nationwide to meet with victims of crime as well as meeting with victim care professionals. Everywhere I have gone in the past seven months and asked that question, the answer has been that the CPS has become risk averse. This includes all the criminal justice agencies,” she said.

Rape charges brought by the CPS fell 38% in 2018-19, even as the number of people reporting rape to the police sharply increased, figures in the CPS’s annual violence against women and girls report showed.

Charging volumes fell between October 2018 and June 2019, then increased by 4% between July and September that year, around the same time as an intention to bring a judicial review into the CPS’s charging decisions was announced.

Although the numbers of rape cases referred to the CPS and completed prosecutions have continued to fall, the decline has slowed. The volume of cases referred by the police fell 14% in the year to September 2019. However, the decline was less steep than the 23% drop in 2018/19. The decline in the volume of completed prosecutions also eased. It fell by 23% in the year to September 2019, down from a decline of 33% in 2018/19.

The director of public prosecutions, Max Hill, said it was right to scrutinise the performance of the criminal justice system.

“I share the deep public concern over the growing gap between the number of rapes being reported and the number of criminals being convicted of this sickening offence,” he said.

“The CPS is playing an active role in the cross-government review which is looking right across the system to understand the reasons for this. There is a clear need for end-to-end action to provide better support for victims of this devastating crime, and to bring more offenders to justice.”

The charge or summons rate for rape fell to one in 65, or 1.5%, of all cases reported to the police in England and Wales in 2018-19, according to the Home Office. The figure has dropped steeply since 2015-16, when one in seven, or 13.7%, of all cases resulted in a charge or summons. New figures from the CPS show the number of cases referred by the police for charging decisions fell again by 32% in the year to September 2019.

A recent report by the Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate concluded the service was not to blame for a precipitous drop in rape charges, but that the system – and in particular police-led investigations – was under-resourced to “breaking point”.

This is disputed by a coalition of women’s rights groups who launched a legal challenge against the CPS in September 2019.

Rape is a notoriously difficult crime to prosecute primarily because it comes down to the question of consent, often in a situation where there are only two people. In these cases evidence beyond the word of the victim or defendant is seen as central to building a strong case. Digital evidence requested from complainants, such as data, location information and texts from phones, is time-consuming to investigate. In 2018, more than half of all rape cases took more than 100 days to assign an outcome.

A charge or summons is one of the steps in proceeding to a trial. Even if a suspect is charged a case may be dropped; and if it proceeds to court a conviction is less likely than it was a decade ago.

Caelainn Barr and Alexandra Topping

The End Violence Against Women Coalition, Rape Crisis England and Wales, Women’s Aid and other women’s groups have also written to the attorney general saying the CPS inspectorate report failed to answer whether rape charging policy and practice at the CPS had become more risk averse. The coalition launched a legal challenge against the CPS in September last year.

The report was commissioned as part of a major government review of the treatment of rape in the criminal justice system last year, commissioned following a collapse in the charging of rape cases, and fears that the CPS was dropping weaker cases.

The HMCPSI report said there was no evidence the CPS had become more risk averse, but that the system – and in particular police-led investigations – were under-resourced to “breaking point”.

The victims’ commissioner suggested HMCPSI had itself driven the CPS to improve conviction rates, “powerfully criticising areas where it was low”, adding: “[T]heir criticisms drove some areas to prosecute fewer cases.”

Her letter also stated that five of the report’s inspectors were recent rape-specialised CPS lawyers; and that “nobody else” had been asked whether CPS had become risk averse, including police, victims’ organisations, court barristers and judges, despite external views having been sought in previous reports.

In their seven-page report to the attorney general, the victims’ groups said it was “unfathomable” that the report had failed to properly investigate a 10% rise in the rape conviction rate, which the inspectorate itself had said was one factor that might show a more risk-averse approach.

Sarah Green, the End Violence Against Women Coalition director, said the groups did not criticise the report lightly, “but our concerns are so serious that we felt we needed to put them on record and alert those who are making decisions about the next steps of the rape review.

“We urge the attorney general and other Criminal Justice Board members to start again on examining CPS decision making. This is critical if the whole rape review’s eventual recommendations are to be sound.”

The groups have also criticised the inspectorate for not speaking to any victims during its investigation. Pragna Patel, the director of Southall Black Sisters, said she feared advocates and victims’ voices were being excluded from the debate.

“The situation around rape is now really at a crisis point,” she said. “We are concerned that survivors’ voices are not at the centre of discussions about policies and law, but not surprised. Sometimes it feels like there is a checklist exercise going on, rather than work of any substance being carried out.”

The shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, said: “Meaningful protection from rape is a key indicator of the rule of law in any society and it is a national scandal that victims and their civil society advocates have been so badly let down. Trust is at an all-time low and without urgent action, any claims to being a ‘law and order government’ ring very hollow indeed.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for rape, Deputy Chief Constable Sarah Crew, said the police were committed to investigating the “complex” crime and were working closely with the cross-government review.

“The current outcomes are not good enough and everyone involved in investigating and prosecuting rape knows there is more to be done,” she said.

“Once we understand the full reasons for the current situation we, and our partners, are dedicated to real and lasting improvements.”