Appeal opened to fund legal action

The failure to prosecute and deter rape makes us all less safe.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) has begun legal action against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) claiming that the CPS has covertly changed its policy and practice in relation to decision-making on rape cases – which has lead to the dramatic fall in the number of rape cases being charged.

EVAW, represented by the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ), are arguing that this change in practice, and the resulting collapse in cases going to court, discriminates against women and girls, and is a major failure to protect their human rights.

The CPS and the Ministry of Justice’s own figures show that while rapes reported to the police have nearly tripled – up by 173 per cent – between 2014 and 2018, the number of cases charged and sent to court is actually down by 44 per cent.

It is appalling that such a change should be implemented at a time when more women than ever are coming forward and reporting this serious crime.

For women who report rape to the police this means they had a 1 in 5 chance of it ending up in court in 2014, but now, when more women than ever are reporting rape, they have a less than 4 per cent chance of ever having their case heard in court.

In September last year a series of investigations by The Guardian newspaper quoted numerous anonymous workers in the criminal justice system saying they had serious concerns about CPS leaders encouraging prosecutors to drop what they termed ‘weak’ cases.

And the investigations also identified huge disparities in the outcome of rape cases, with young adult men being much more likely to be acquitted of rape than older defendants.

The EVAW Coalition has been driven to taking this action after many years of monitoring rape and justice system statistics and outcomes, and after hearing from its member organisations and many individual women about appalling decision-making by the CPS in rape cases – and has opened a CrowdJustice fundraising appeal to support the legal challenge.

The Coalition’s lawyers at CWJ have now sent a ‘Letter Before Action’ to the CPS.

EVAW’s lawyers have collated a dossier of 21 cases where decisions have been made not to charge despite compelling evidence and in some cases where men were known to be violent and some suspected of being serial offenders.

Rebecca, to take one example, was raped at knifepoint and held prisoner for two days by her boyfriend, a man who was known by the police to be violent.

Despite lots of evidence of violence against Rebecca, the CPS prosecutor dropped the case saying Whatsapp messages she had sent to placate her attacker could be misinterpreted by the jury.

And Gina was raped repeatedly by her husband but the case was dropped because the CPS prosecutor felt the jury might not understand the dynamics of a coercive and controlling relationship.

Rape in a domestic violence context make up a large proportion of the rapes that are reported to police and referred on to the CPS.

The EVAW Coalition’s Co-Director, Sarah Green, said: “We have strong evidence to show that CPS leaders have quietly changed their approach to decision-making in rape cases, switching from building cases based on their ‘merits’ back to second-guessing jury prejudices.

“This is extremely serious and is having a detrimental impact on women’s access to justice.

“We are witnessing a collapse in justice after rape at a time when increasing numbers of women are speaking out and reporting these crimes,” Green continued.

“Instead of building on more than a decade’s painstaking work to bring cases with strong evidence to trial, the CPS is taking us backwards, resulting in a terrible outcome.

“We’re hearing from women who’ve been raped and from our member organisations who support survivors of rape, and they are telling us about cases being dropped for reasons that are hard to understand.

“Our society has agreed that really serious allegations with strong evidence should be tested in court – that’s the basis of our criminal justice system.

“So it can’t be right that our independent prosecution service has covertly made a significant change which we believe is resulting in anonymous decision-makers discarding cases that should be heard in court.

“That they have done this without consultation, and without regard for the likely impact on women and girls, is appalling.

“The failure to prosecute and deter rape makes us all less safe. This is why we feel compelled to bring this case and why we are asking the public to help us fund it.

“We want the CPS to immediately reinstate the ‘merits’ approach for decision-making in rape cases, and we want all cases which may have been unfairly dropped reviewed.”

Harriet Wistrich, Director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said: “In the case we brought again the Metropolitan Police arising from their failure to adequately investigate the serial rapist John Worboys, the Supreme Court held that this failure amounted to human rights violation.

“We are arguing that the CPS’s systemic failure to prosecute rape is a comparable human rights failure and has a discriminatory impact on women – who are the large majority of rape victims.

“The failures by the CPS to consult on changes to policy and to disregard its own guidance developed to tackle the under-prosecution of rape are, we argue, unlawful.”

To give to the CrowdJustice appeal and fund the challenge, click here.