Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates

Author:Laura Bates [Bates, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781398514348
Publisher: SimonSchuster
Published: 2022-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

PUTTING THE VICTIM ON TRIAL

Policing is not the only broken institution. In the past few years, we have witnessed a shocking collapse in the volume and percentage of rape allegations resulting in a prosecution. Since 2016–17, rape prosecutions have plummeted to an unprecedented low: in 2020–21, there were just 1,557 prosecutions in England and Wales, despite over 55,000 cases being reported to police. Charges in rape cases are now exactly half what they were in 2015–16, representing an alarmingly rapid decline. In a landmark report on ‘the decriminalisation of rape’, leading women’s charities set out a powerful argument that rape cases were being dropped when they shouldn’t be. The report included a devastating dossier of rape cases the CPS had decided not to charge, including a woman held at knifepoint, a woman whose rape was filmed, with footage found on the suspect’s phone, and a case for which the CPS’s reason not to bring charges was that the survivor ‘enjoyed an adventurous sex life’.

What was most concerning was the allegation in the report that CPS guidance and training had shifted dramatically in recent years, with prosecutors encouraged to remove ‘weak’ rape cases that might be ‘less likely to find favour with a jury’. ‘If we took 350 weak cases out of the system, our conviction rate goes up to 61 per cent,’ as one whistle-blower said they were instructed in a training session.

The problem with this approach is that, once again, it aligns a system (in this case, our justice system) with the insidious ideas that are rampant in our society. Gender stereotypes, myths about sexual violence, notions of who is ‘asking for it’ and confusion about consent. Around the same time that whistle-blowers claimed the training shifted, guidance encouraging prosecutors to take a ‘merits-based approach’ to cases, instead of making charging decisions based on how a jury might respond, disappeared from the CPS website and training manuals. And the dates correspond directly with the significant decrease in the numbers of suspects charged, starting in 2017–18.

‘Many colleagues have positively embraced the “bookmaker’s approach” to charge,’ noted a whistle-blower. ‘They feel empowered to stop the prosecution of more “difficult” cases, which, based on their previous experience, have little prospect of resulting in a successful outcome at trial, such as so-called “student rape cases” involving alcohol.’

‘Sexual offenders often target vulnerable victims, such as children, people with disabilities and people with chaotic lifestyles, because they know it is unlikely that they will be believed by a jury,’ the whistle-blower’s statement noted. If prosecutors are playing a guessing game about potential juror prejudices, those already-marginalised victims are likely to be worst affected.

But it’s okay. Have you guessed why? That’s right, there was a review. A judicial review brought by campaigners from the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), supported by the Centre for Women’s Justice. And, without engaging in any meaningful way with the extensive evidence put forward by the EVAW, the judges (mostly men, of course) decided that the CPS had neither acted

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