Rape victims are being forced to wait an average of 15 months between their attacker being charged and the end of the trial, damning new figures have revealed.
New “scorecards” to rate the performance of different criminal justice agencies, published for the first time today, also revealed that just one in 40 rape offences recorded by the police between April and June led to a suspect being charged.
The equivalent rate for all other crimes recorded during the same three-month period was barely higher — at around one in 33.
Of 990,405 offences recorded by police where there were specific victims, just 30,924 charges were authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Of 11,312 rape offences reported between April and June this year, just 292 led to the CPS authorising a suspect to be charged.
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In order to meet the government’s target of returning to the levels of prosecutions achieved in 2016, this number will have to almost double within the next three years.
Meanwhile, more than six in ten rape cases collapsed between April and June because the victim no longer supported further police action — an increase of 4 per cent.
The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW Coalition) said: “Today’s scorecards paint a familiar picture of a broken justice system failing to meet its own targets to charge, prosecute and convict rapists.”
The length of time a victim has to wait has repeatedly been blamed for the poor prosecution rate of rape cases.
Figures for April to June this year, which were published today, revealed that the time it now takes between the CPS authorising a suspect to be charged with rape and the case being completed is 457 days.
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This gap is an increase of 84 days on the previous three month period’s figures.
It is also more than double the average time it takes other crimes to be completed, which is 216 days.
It now takes an average of 70 days from the time the CPS charges a suspect to the case arriving in the Crown Court. This has increased by an entire month between January and June this year.
Andrea Simon, the director of the EVAW Coalition, said: “While we welcome yesterday’s announcement of new Victims’ Law that could enshrine entitlements for victims of crime, this alone cannot fix our broken justice system.
“It must work alongside efforts to transform a system that we know is buckling and failing to deliver justice to victims of rape and other forms of abuse that disproportionately affect women and girls.”
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Despite a two year long government review into rape, the pace of change remains unbearably slow.
The first set of rape scorecards underlines this fact, while showing that victims of rape will wait decades before the number of cases prosecuted reaches the CPS’ own target of returning to prosecution levels from just 5 years ago.
Lengthy backlogs in the courts caused by Covid are understood to have caused the increase in waiting times.
The backlog of cases in the Crown Court now stands at around 59,000 — slightly lower than last month, when the figure reached around 60,600.
But elsewhere in the criminal justice system, waiting times for rape victims have been marginally reduced.
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The average time it takes the Crown Prosecution Service to make a decision on whether to charge a suspect has fallen by a month — from 151 to 122 days.
Police take an average of 419 days from a rape being reported by the victim to a suspect being charged — a fall of 15 days compared to the previous three months.
The average time it takes for an offence to be reported by police to a “successful outcome” also fell slightly — from 432 to 419 days.
I. Stephanie Boyce, the president of the Law Society, the body that represents solicitors in England and Wales, said that the backlog in the courts had also been caused by years of underfunding in the courts system.
She said: “Some trials are being delayed until 2023, meaning a traumatised victim can be left waiting years to see their assailant locked up, while an innocent defendant can find their life in limbo while they wait to clear their name.
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“The backlog has been exacerbated by the pandemic but is the result of years of underfunding and cuts including court closures, caps on judicial sitting days and a lack of funding of legal aid.
“Investment is required across the whole of the criminal justice system to provide the capacity to tackle the backlogs in a meaningful way.
“With Plan B coming into force, we are pleased to see [the] HM Courts and Tribunals Service plan to keep the courts open and running, as long as safety measures are followed to minimise the risk to our members and other court users and avoid Covid outbreaks which would slow efforts to tackle the caseload.”
Max Hill QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said: “We welcome the government’s publication of the criminal justice system scorecards, which bring greater transparency and accountability for everyone involved. The challenges we face are system-wide and so too are the solutions.
“The CPS commitment to reversing the decline in rape prosecutions remains unwavering and we are increasing resources for our specialist units so they are equipped to deal with more cases, more quickly.”
