Finally some hope for victims as rape trials soar

For years, the British police have had a problem with rape. Investigations falter, forces record allegations as “no crime”, and women are reluctant to come forward with claims in the first place.

So it’s heartening that Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, has revealed that the number of complaints sent to trial has risen by 30 per cent.

Now for a tougher challenge: to bring as many of those perpetrators to justice.

An academic employed by the Metropolitan Police, Professor Betsy Stanko, told me last year it was as if rape had been “decriminalised”, because the rate of prosecutions and convictions remained so stubbornly low.

At that point, barely a quarter of rape allegations which the police decide to investigate were solved – a detection rate which had halved since 2002.

Her research was one reason behind a national campaign to encourage women to speak out. Now, prosecutors are reaping the rewards of that campaign.

An extra 550 jury trials are expected to take place this year, taking the total to 2,400. So now police and prosecutors have their work cut out to make those charges stick.

Survivors of rape and other sexual assaults inevitably find the court process incredibly traumatic, and the justice system often appears to be stacked in favour of the offender.

Who can forget the musician Frances Andrade’s horrendous experience in court at the Trial of the defence lawyer representing her abuser, her former music teacher?

She texted a friend to say it felt as if she had been “raped all over again” as the barrister tried to undermine her evidence. Three days after that text she took her own life.

So the women making the allegations in those 2,400 trials will need to be given all the support they need. Ms Saunders says extra funding may be required to do so.

Others, led by the MP Elfyn Llwyd, and backed by the campaign group Digital-Trust, are calling for a change in the law to enshrine victims’ rights in law.

Legislation Mr Llwyd will put forward as a private members’ bill proposes giving victims, amongst other things, the right to ask for a review of a police or Crown Prosecution Service decision to drop a case, improving their access to professional support during a trial, and giving them a statutory right to respect.

Is legislation the answer? Perhaps what is needed is a broader cultural change, which may be tricky in the adversarial system the British courts deploy.

But at least now, after years in which survivors had little chance of bringing their attackers to justice, there is hope.

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