Ministers claim to have improved the criminal justice system’s dismal handling of rape cases – but critics accused them of ‘overstating’ their progress.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said ‘two of the three key ambitions’ set out in the Government’s Rape Review published two years ago had been met.
Adult rape cases referred by police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for early advice or a charging decision hit 1,079 in the last three months of 2022, a report out today reveals. It said this ‘exceeded our 2016 ambition of 766’.
Adult rape cases at crown courts hit 605 in the first three months this year, compared with a target of 553, and 472 adult suspects were charged between October and December, ‘close to our ambition of 538’.
Mr Chalk said: ‘We’ve made significant progress.’
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk (pictured) said ‘two of the three key ambitions’ set out in the Government’s Rape Review published two years ago had been met
But the campaign group End Violence Against Women said the Government had been ‘too quick’ to claim success.
Director Andrea Simon added: ‘The vast majority of rape survivors don’t report to the police – the majority who do will leave the system due to the barriers to justice.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk