“Rape is a serious and deeply damaging crime. It is unique in the way it strikes at the bodily integrity and self-respect of the victim, in the demands it makes on those public authorities required to respond to it and in the controversy it generates…(it) is unique as it is an inherently lawful activity made illegal because of lack of consent. Women, men, children, and people of all ages and all social groups can become rape victims”.

 The words of Baroness Stern, invited by the Government Equalities Office and the Home Office to carry out an independent review into the treatment of rape complaints by public authorities, in presenting her final report. In one respect the report is ground breaking. Rape and sexual assault have usually been seen as women’s issues – the victims are female, the perpetrators male – but this is no longer the case. Male rape was recognised by English and Welsh law in 1994 and, according to the Stern Review, the victim is male in around 8% of all recorded rape cases. The report states that only a small proportion of rape is reported to the authorities. Probably about 11 per cent of those who have been raped tell the police about it. In England and Wales in 2008/9, 12,129 rapes of women and 964 rapes of men were recorded by the police. The most recent data, the British Crime Survey from 2008/9, show that the lifetime prevalence for rape and attempted rape in those over 16 was nearly one in 24 women (4.2 per cent) and one in 200 men (0.5 per cent). The number of rapes recorded by the police has risen considerably in recent years. Figures from the Metropolitan Police area for 2009/10 show that recorded rapes increased by 29 per cent in a year and, for England and Wales as a whole, the number of recorded rapes rose from 2,855 in 1988 to 7,636 in 1998 and 13,093 in 2008.

Rape can occur in a range of circumstances. Those usually referred to as ‘stranger rapes’, the sort of incidents most often reported on by the newspapers, where the victim and the perpetrator do not know each other, are a small proportion of rape cases. Most rapes are carried out by someone the victim knows. Much rape occurs in families. False notions about rape are widespread. There is a view that women are in some way to blame for being raped if they go out wearing revealing clothes and have too much to drink. The subject of false allegations came up so often in discussions about rape, and the information about the prevalence of false allegations is so scanty, that Baroness Stern recommends that research be undertaken to establish their frequency. The percentage of all the cases recorded by the police as a rape that end up with someone being convicted is usually quoted as being around six per cent. The ‘Guardian’ leader of 16 March is trenchant in the view that “the scale of rape and sexual assault in our society is appalling. People are right to be indignant that so few rapists still answer for their crimes”.

In dealing with rape complaints, the report states that a substantial amount of change has been introduced in recent years by the responsible public authorities. “Attitudes, policies and practices have changed, fundamentally and for the better. In England and Wales we now have a system with specialisation in dealing with rape at the police, prosecution and judicial levels. We have measures in the courtroom to minimise the trauma of the trial for the complainant. We have a programme to provide state-of-the-art medical centres in every police force area, where victims of rape can be examined and assisted”. In accepting that current policies are right, the report recommends “that the Government and those authorities should take further some of the excellent developments already under way. We have made some detailed recommendations to the police and prosecution services which are designed to make implementation of the existing policies more effective”.

In her report Baroness Stern pays tribute to the work done by Sara Payne, whose findings were the subject of the blog entitled “Rape – the Victims’ Champion’s Review” posted on 4 December last year. The full text of the Stern Review can be found at:-

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/PDF/Stern_Review_acc_FINAL.pdf

In the eight years since her daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered by a paedophile, Sara Payne has become a familiar figure in British public life. In January she was appointed to the post of Victims’ Champion, a new independent public voice for victims of and witnesses to crime.

This summer Home Secretary Alan Johnson invited her “to undertake a short piece of work on rape as part of the consultation exercise on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)”. This is in conjunction with Baroness Stern’s independent review, due to be completed by next February, into the way rape complaints are handled by public authorities in England and Wales. Baroness Stern is examining the whole process of a rape complaint from the moment a rape is first disclosed until the court has reached a verdict.

The Victims’ Champion has now published her report. Specifically she was asked to consider the factors that influence a rape victim to report to the police, what factors influence a rape victim to withdraw from the criminal justice system post report, and what could be done to improve the overall satisfaction of victims with the service they receive from the criminal justice system. Her report, which is based on focus groups with adult women rape victims as well as expert groups of police, prosecutors and specialists in sexual violence, highlights the inconsistent treatment of rape victims by different criminal justice agencies. The evidence shows that most victims are attacked in private, by someone known to them, and injuries are not common. But victims face a culture of disbelief from the police, who are still refusing to take complaints of rape seriously if the victims come from “the wrong part of town”, if they have been drinking or if they have made previous allegations.

Victims want to be believed when they disclose they have been raped. They commonly asked themselves whether they were to blame, whether they would be believed if they reported, and felt that a trial was effectively an assessment by a jury of whether they were lying or not. “I have not heard these views expressed about any other offence and certainly cannot imagine similar thoughts or feelings entering the head of a victim of burglary, for example”. The women she spoke to were clear that if they are not treated with dignity when first reporting rape, it is unlikely they would continue to support a prosecution. “Victims frequently expressed anger that their place in the criminal justice system is effectively as a witness in their own case. Many were disappointed that the prosecution represents the Crown, rather than the victim, in contrast to the defendant who has his own legal representation”. She makes a number of recommendations in her report, including better training for police and the Crown Prosecution Service, improvements to the quantity and quality of Sexual Assault Referral Centres and Independent Sexual Violence Advisers, improved information to victims when the prosecution decides a case will not proceed, and an awareness campaign to challenge public attitudes to rape and other forms of sexual violence.

And action already. The ‘Guardian’ this week reports that the country’s first dedicated rape intelligence unit has been set up within the Metropolitan police, promising to identify and track down serial attackers. A unit of officers trained in techniques usually used to tackle organised crime and terrorism, with an additional budget of £1.4m, will become part of what Scotland Yard says is now the biggest rape investigation squad in the world. Responding to widespread criticism earlier this year when shocking failings in investigating serial rapists were exposed, the Met says it has revolutionised and raised the status of its rape inquiry unit.

The full text of Sara Payne’s report ‘Rape: The Victim Experience Review’ is at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/vawg-rape-review/rape-victim-experience.pdf?view=Binary