Attorney General's Office

Solicitor General: speech to rape and sexual assault conference

Solicitor General Vera Baird QC, MP

Thank you for inviting me to speak today on this important subject. The Government is resolutely committed to improving performance on rape prosecutions and the response to rape, one of the most traumatic crimes that a victim can experience. We want to increase reporting and conviction rates; ensuring that victims are supported adequately, that the criminal justice response is improved and that prevention is maximised.

Each of you in this room has an important role to play, as the police role in investigating rape critically accounts for the success in prosecutions through the CPS.

I hope that you will be able to go away from today's event with a renewed sense of purpose, and perhaps most importantly, with a clear idea of the important function that each of you has in ensuring that we improve rape investigations and prosecutions.

Role as Solicitor General
Before I share my vision, as Solicitor General, for the CJS and the response to rape, it may be helpful if I set out the key elements of my role currently.

The Attorney General and I are accountable to Parliament under statute for the superintendence of the CPS and share responsibility with the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary for criminal justice policy.

• We answer parliamentary questions and represent the Government in debates on prosecution policy or on occasion, particular prosecutions
• We are consulted on the development of criminal justice policy and legislation; we are part of the National Criminal Justice Board, which gathers local input and sends out cross-discipline policy to local Criminal Justice Boards.

We are the voice of prosecutors within government. In addition, because we have a role as guardians of the public interest, we have a role in relation to certain individual criminal cases, for instance:

• Cases requiring consent to prosecute;
• Referring potential unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal; and
• Decisions on whether to institute proceedings for contempt of court (to name but some).

This means that in practice we have a much more direct involvement in individual cases than Ministers usually have, even where their department has a power to prosecute.

My view of the current CJS is that, notwithstanding the great developments that have taken place in recent memory, and particularly in the role of the prosecutor, the CJS remains:

• too remote;
• too arcane; and
• It often does not sufficiently demonstrate that it is there to serve people, and society, not the reverse.

What then are my immediate areas of focus for the Criminal Justice Service - as I have been calling the CJS for some time now as it's designed to serve the public?

• engaging far more with the community it serves;
• improving public confidence;
• being more effective; and
• providing proper support so vulnerable victims can be empowered to obtain justice.

Setting out the context of rape prosecutions
As you are aware, there are many barriers to overcome in improving rape investigations and prosecutions.

We are seeking to challenge many of the myths that surround cases of rape and hinder successful prosecutions. Recently there have been two important decisions in prosecuting such cases which exemplify the problem.

The first, is the case of Bree, where it was established, contrary to the decision at trial in the first instance, that an intoxicated woman can lose the capacity to give consent, a stage that can be reached well before she becomes unconscious. The second, is the case of Regina-v-D (JA) or otherwise known as Doody, where I appeared in court in my capacity as Solicitor General, established that judges should direct juries that a late complaint does not necessarily mean that it is a false complaint. Both of these are groundbreaking decisions.

But there is still more to do. There is a myth that rape victims will always suffer physical injury. Forensic medical examiners could help dispel this myth if, in appropriate cases, they explained that absence of injury is not necessarily inconsistent with an allegation of rape.

Government response
There is much work across Government to improve the response to rape. The Tackling Violence Action Plan drives forward work on sexual violence.

We are going to be more than doubling the number of Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) by March 2011, ensuring that there is at least one in each of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales. SARCs are designed to bring together all of the different forensic, medical and specialist support services and departments in one place, which helps both the victims and those investigating the crimes.

SARCs should also offer victims of sexual crime an integrated service where victims can receive medical care, psychological counseling, and other support, all in one place from professionally trained staff, or be signposted via clear pathways to appropriate services that meet their needs.

Helping the investigation
SARC's can relieve some of the pressure on police service resources by providing centralised facilities where they can meet with the victim, conduct forensic examinations and gather evidence.

We are also aiming to ensure that all victims should have access to an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor by March 2011. We have recently announced funding of £1.6million for new and existing SARCs and new funding will be available for Independent Sexual Violence Advisors. These people act as befrienders to the victim and support from the start of the process to the end. And they are independent and are not linked to either CPS or police targets.

We are continuing to fund the invaluable work of the sexual violence voluntary sector. In the last year, £1.25 million of funding has been provided and this year we will be spending around £3 million to increase the capacity and stability of the sector. Last year we announced an emergency fund of over £1 million to prevent immediate closures of those rape crisis centres most at risk.

The Violence Against Women & Girls consultation was launched by the former Home Secretary in March. That consultation has now closed and Home Office officials are in the process of analysing over 10,000 responses that have been received to inform the publication of a Cross Government VAWG strategy later this year.

Analysis of the consultation responses so far has identified that in relation to sexual violence, and particularly the effective handling of complaints about rape, there is a gap in the consultation which we have agreed needs to be addressed.

Although a series of measures to improve the investigation and prosecution of rape to ensure victims received a consistent, high-quality service were announced by the Home Office in April we believe that we need to complement this work by taking a closer and broader look at the barriers preventing full implementation of current policy and to consider further what we can do to ensure the effective handing of rape by authorities.

We also recognise that we need to look more closely at recent cases including the Worboys and Reid cases, and the significant learning outcomes. It is important to point out that these cases are still being looked at by the IPCC.

The Worboys and Reid cases
You may be familiar with the following cases.

John Worboys, was a taxi driver, and in March was found guilty of 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 female passengers in his black cab. In one case he raped his victim. Worboys kept his "tool kit", which included powerful prescribed and over-the-counter sedatives, a bag of cash, alcoholic drinks, including champagne, wine, whisky, gin and vodka, condoms and gloves. He would crush the pills before putting them in the drinks and then drive around waiting for the drugs to take effect.
Worboys would persuade them to have a drink, which he had spiked with a powerful sedative drug and then assault them on the back seat of his cab before taking them home.

This case shares similarities with the Reid case, in that there were multiple victims and the sexual assaults occurred over a period of time.

In August 2001 an investigation was launched into an indecent assault in Battersea, in the London borough of Wandsworth. Two weeks later, there was another attack in the same area. The perpetrator left traces of DNA and a profile was obtained, though it did not match any DNA records held on the national database. Several more indecent assaults followed before an attack in December 2001 yielded the same DNA result as the first profile. By September the following year, police had linked 26 sexual offences in Wandsworth. All were so-called "stranger" attacks on women walking alone, late at night. The victims, who aged from their late teens to their early 60s, were usually on their way home, having taken the bus or Tube, or after being dropped off by taxi. The attacks were frightening. The women were approached from behind and forced to the ground.

Rape Review
What do these tragic cases tell us? That there is a pressing need to identify, investigate and prosecute at the earliest possible stage and that training is crucial for frontline staff. We know that the police special units on sexual assault and ACPO guidance have been very beneficial in improving the response to rape. However there is more still to do.

Yesterday, I announced the commencement of an independent rape review, to be conducted by Baroness Stern, that will supplement the VAWG consultation and look at the problems these two cases raise. It will:

• Examine the response of the public authorities to rape complaints and examine how more victims can be encouraged to report;
• Explore ways in which the attrition rate in criminal cases can be reduced and, how to fairly increase the conviction rate;
• Identify how to increase victim and witness satisfaction and confidence in the CJS in addressing rape;
• Explore public and professional attitudes to rape and how they impact on outcomes;
• Utilise findings and information available from other relevant work, particularly the work on victims' experience being led by Sara Payne and the DH Taskforce led by Professor Alberti, avoiding unnecessary duplication
• Make recommendations, with particular reference to improving the implementation of current policies and procedures.

The review will be independently chaired by Baroness Stern and will examine the response of public authorities to rape complaints and examine how more victims can be encouraged to report; it will identify how to increase victim and witness satisfaction and confidence in the CJS in addressing rape and will make recommendations with particular reference to improving the implementation of current policies.
The Review will begin immediately and will report early in New Year.

We will ensure that the emerging findings from the Stern Review will be fed into the VAWG document and will reference the forthcoming report and the fact it will make specific recommendations on rape.

CPS: the Violence Against Women Strategy
I would now like to talk to you briefly about how the CPS has risen to the challenge of tackling violence against women crimes in a truly integrated fashion.
I think it can be said that the CPS is a pioneer in tackling violence against women. It is, we believe, the first public prosecution service to integrate all forms of violence against women under the UN definition into a strategy and action plan which relates work in this area to a wider gender equality agenda. It is through this type of work that the CPS is achieving its vision of becoming a world class prosecution service.
The CPS Violence Against Women strategy and action plan is aimed at integrating, coordinating and improving prosecutions and support for victims in a range of crimes, including but not limited to; domestic violence; rape and sexual offences, honour-based violence; prostitution; and human trafficking.

Examples of CPS work
In the next three years, the CPS is focused on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice system, through bringing more offenders of violence against women crimes to justice.
It will seek to achieve this through:

• Improving prosecution performance with a new violence against women indicator, including targets for increasing successful outcomes in domestic violence, rape and sexual offences - In the rolling year to end of March 2009 we achieved a 58% rate of successful rape prosecutions, 72% in cases of domestic violence and 75% for sexual offences other than rape;
• the development of specific guidance for prosecutors on Violence against Women;
• the coordination and strengthening of Area coordinators and specialist prosecutors;
• annually measuring the satisfaction of stakeholders and
• improving training across a range of VAWG work.

In addition, the CPS is targeting improved victim and witness support, safety and satisfaction. This will be achieved through;

• support systems for victims and outcome monitoring; and
• the development of a system to measure the support for and satisfaction of women victims of violence, across the criminal justice system.

Finally, the CPS is also seeking to address any disproportionality across the equality strands through:

• examining the equality profiles of defendants and victims; and
• ensuring Witness Care Units have support systems and information on support for victims and witnesses from all communities.

I hope that I have been able to outline to you just some of the good work going on in this area, and some of the challenges that we face. The Government has done, and continues to focus attention on these important issues. We are seeking to properly equip front line practitioners to tackle the problem and are putting into place arrangements that will protect victims.

But there must be a committed and collaborative working at both a national and local level if full advantage is to be taken of these strategies. That is the only way to deal sensitively and effectively with those subjected to or at risk of rape. Events like this are so very important to achieving these aims.

I am so pleased that many of you here today will be able to take up this challenge and directly influence for the better the lives of victims and their families. I would like to commend you all on your efforts so far.

The message that we need to send out is that we are committed to working together effectively and sympathetically with victims and to protect them, enforce their rights and uphold the law.
We must prevent cases like Worboys and Reid from occurring, devastating so many victims lives.
By providing an effective multi-agency response and approach to victims and survivors we are implementing an ambitious programme to make our community a safer place for all.