Rape Victims to Meet With Prosecutors After Not Guilty Pleas

New plans aim to cut number of women who withdraw from trial process

A model poses as a complainant waiting to seen by a doctor at a specialist rape clinic in Kent, England on Jan. 31, 2007. (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Prosecutors in rape cases will meet complainants face-to-face if defendants plead not guilty, under new plans designed to cut the number of women who withdraw from the trial process.

The number of rape prosecutions in England and Wales dropped by 70 percent between 2017 and 2022 and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is concerned about the number of complainants who stop cooperating before cases come to trial.

The obligation for prosecutors to meet complainants will form part of an updated Victims’ Code, which will be enshrined in the Victims and Prisoners Bill, which began the committee stage in Parliament on Monday.

The code will guarantee CPS staff offer to meet adult victims in person after the defendant enters a not guilty plea in court.

The face-to-face meetings are designed for the complainant to ask questions and seek reassurance in order for them to continue through the criminal justice system.

Many women refuse to go through the trial process because of the trauma of giving evidence and being questioned about their past.

Last month the Law Commission proposed a change to the law which would ban barristers from asking a rape complainant about her sexual history.

Chalk: ‘Going to Court can be Daunting’

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said, “Going to court as a victim can be daunting and confusing so meetings with the prosecution team will ensure they can have their questions answered and worries eased.”

“Helping rape victims to give their best evidence will ensure we put more of these vile attackers behind bars,” added Chalk.

The director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill, KC, said: “Victims deserve, and rightly expect, to be supported, informed and treated fairly. They are central to our cases and our ability to bring successful prosecutions.”

He said: “This new offer for a meeting between adult victims of rape and other serious sexual offences and a member of the prosecution team complements the service we are developing for all victims through our Victim Transformation Programme.”

“We hope it will help give victims confidence in attending court and highlight the support available to them when giving evidence,” Hill added.

The success or otherwise of rape trials has been an increasingly politicised debate.

Last year the pressure group End Violence Against Women (EVAW) lost a legal challenge against the CPS and claimed they were “decriminalising rape,” an allegation repeated by Labour’s shadow justice minister Ellie Reeves.

EVAW claim the fall in prosecutions follows the introduction of a “merits-based approach” in 2010 by the then director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, who is now the leader of the Labour Party.

Under that approach, prosecutors were told to judge a case simply on the “merits” of the evidence, rather than thinking about what chance, in percentage terms, there was of it leading to a conviction.

Juryless Rape Trials Floated in Scotland

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is trying to push through legislation which would introduce a pilot of juryless trials in rape cases, something which lawyers are threatening to boycott.

A public consultation on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, which would also abolish the traditional Scottish verdict of “not proven,” which is an alternative to guilty or not guilty.

The bill has been criticised by lawyers in Scotland.

In September, Jack Ross, KC, a Scottish defence advocate, told The Epoch Times that the SNP was under pressure from, “various interest groups who said that not enough people were being convicted of rape and to do something about it, without thinking it through.”

The convener of the Scottish government’s Criminal Justice Committee, Audrey Nicoll, said, “We recognise the controversy over some aspects of this Bill but it is important that the committee hears from all sides before forming any conclusions.”

PA Media contributed to this report.