Rape and sexual assault victims 'waiting more than two years' for cases to be heard

Victims of rape and sexual assault are waiting years for their cases to be heard, according to a new report.

The charity Rape Crisis England & Wales said its Breaking Point report highlights a “record high” backlog in the crown courts, with victims and survivors of rape and other sexual offences facing “an average wait of 839 days from report to completion in court” – more than two years.

It said a Freedom of Information request to HM Courts and Tribunal Service revealed 7,859 sexual offence cases and 1,851 adult rape cases are waiting to be heard.

The number of vacated and ineffective, “therefore delayed”, rape trials more than doubled from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022, it said.

The same data shows the number of trials that were postponed at least once increased by 133% – and there were five times as many hearings that had been rescheduled six or more times, it said.

There has also been a “huge increase” in the number of ineffective trials due to lack of prosecution counsel, the charity added.

It said a breakdown of reasons for ineffective trial listings given to the Justice Select Committee showed 1,925 instances were due to the prosecution advocate failing to attend in the year to 20 June 2022 – an increase of 1,722 in two years.

Such delays are having a “devastating impact” on victims and survivors, the charity said, with some attempting suicide and others giving up on pursuing justice.

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Rape Crisis England & Wales’ chief executive Jayne Butler said: “On top of lengthy police investigations lasting years, and long periods of hearing nothing, victims and survivors are facing their cases being rescheduled in the courts – often multiple times – or find that they have not been informed about key developments, such as changes to trial dates.

“Whether intentional or not, this further marginalises victims and survivors, who already feel de-prioritised in an imbalanced system.”

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The charity said it has long been calling for the establishment of specialist sexual violence and abuse courts, where court staff and judiciary would have trauma-informed training.

It also wants rape and sexual abuse cases to be given “priority listing”, and clear and formalised communication agreements between all criminal justice agencies so survivors are told about key changes to the trial.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The government is delivering real improvements in the response to rape – in the last year alone the number of rape cases referred by the police to the CPS is up more than 50%, the number of suspects charged has increased by 54% and convictions are up by 65% compared to last year.

“We know more needs to be done, particularly so that victims have confidence and feel supported, which is why we’ve quadrupled funding for victims’ services, enabled them to pre-record court evidence earlier and away from defendants, and launched a 24/7 helpline with Rape Crisis.”

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