Victims’ despair at delays for justice led to the collapse of 150 rape trials in the past year, figures reveal
By Rebecca Camber Crime And Security Editor[1]
Published: 00:34, 3 January 2024 | Updated: 01:31, 3 January 2024
Nearly 150 rape trials have collapsed in the past year due to victims pulling out of prosecutions in despair after waiting years for justice, new figures reveal.
Some 146 victims dropped out of cases after waiting as long as five years for their attacker to face trial.
Official figures show victim withdrawal accounts for half of prosecutions failing in some areas.
It comes as the rape case backlog has soared by 356 per cent in four years to a record 2,591 awaiting trial in England and Wales. There were 568 victims waiting in March 2019.
Yesterday, the Mail revealed police had launched their first investigation[2] into a sex attack carried out in the virtual metaverse[3].
Nearly 150 rape trials have collapsed in the past year due to victims pulling out of prosecutions, figures show (file photo)
The Mail yesterday revealed police had launched their first investigation into a sex attack carried out in the virtual metaverse. Pictured: A woman wearing a Metaverse virtual reality headset
A girl has been left ‘traumatised’, officers say, after her avatar – her digital character – was ‘gang raped’ in a virtual reality world accessed via a headset.
It sparked a debate over whether police have the powers to get involved in, or should take up, virtual complaints, given the enormous backlog of actual rape cases.
In one shocking instance, a teenage victim whose case has been delayed four times due to a lack of available prosecutor finally had her trial listed to start last November. But no court was free to hear it so it was postponed yet again.
The victim is now self-harming and threatening to pull out of the prosecution.
In another case, a vulnerable teenager attacked while in foster care had to wait six years for her attacker to eventually go on trial.
Analysis shows that some victims are facing delays of more than two and a half years just to go through the court process after the suspect is charged.
A lack of specialist prosecutors, judges and crumbling courts are exacerbating the delays. Rape attacks reported to police in 2020 are now being listed for trial in 2025.
The Rape Crisis charity said women were waiting more than eight years for justice, with the process leaving some suicidal.
One specialist sexual offences lawyer said: ‘I despair. You have got vulnerable victims self-harming and considering pulling out of the prosecution who have been let down time and time again because no prosecutor or defence lawyer or judge could be found.
It has never been so bad.’
Analysis shows that some victims are facing delays of more than two and a half years just to go through the court process after the suspect is charged (stock photo)
Ministry of Justice data on adult rape cases that did not result in a conviction shows 50 per cent of cases in Nottinghamshire, Cleveland, Cumbria and Dyfed-Powys collapsed after the victim withdrew their support between April and June 2023.
Overall, one in six adult rape cases listed in that period as having failed to secure a conviction in England and Wales were abandoned because the victim no longer supported the prosecution.
And 59 per cent of police rape investigations close because the victim has withdrawn.
From April to June 2023, the average time for a rape case to be investigated in Cleveland was 479 days, three times longer than the previous three months.
In Hertfordshire, victims waited 598 days, then another 762 days from the suspect being charged to their trial finishing.
In Surrey, it took 897 days on average to solve a rape case, and then another year for it to come to court. The national average time for police to investigate a rape is 315 days, then victims face another year waiting for the trial to finish.
One woman in her 50s first reported child sexual abuse in 2015 and waited six years for police to charge the suspect.
The case was listed for trial in 2022 but was postponed. It was re-listed for September 2023 but she was told there was no guarantee it would take place, causing her to drop out of the case.
Months later her alleged attacker died. ‘It was mental torture,’ she said.
The Ministry of Justice said ‘fewer than 8 per cent of adult rape court cases collapse because a victim drops out’, adding: ‘This figure has fallen while rape prosecutions are increasing.
We are running the courts at full steam to hear cases as quickly as possible.’
Tana Adkin KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said: ‘If justice is not served in good time, it is not served at all.
‘Dedicated criminal barristers prosecuting and defending rape and serious sexual offences would like the courts to give priority to these types of case.’
She added: ‘Delays to cases being heard, especially rape and serious sexual offence cases, mean that victims, witnesses and defendants are held in limbo unable to move on with their lives.’
References
- ^ Rebecca Camber Crime And Security Editor (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ first investigation (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ metaverse (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Metaverse (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Wales (www.dailymail.co.uk)