Attorney General's Office

Solicitor General: speech to the Sexual Violence National Support Team Conference

Solicitor General, Vera Baird QC MP

I am delighted to speak today at this key point in the development and further roll-out of Sexual Assault Referral Centres. As someone who has been nagging, at least the legal establishment, for twenty years about rape I find it inspiring to be here, in a room filled with people dedicated to supporting the needs of those affected by sexual violence.

Three million women across the UK experience rape, domestic violence, forced marriage, human trafficking or another form of violence every year. The total annual cost of violence against women is estimated to be £40.1billion per year .

Violence against women is both a cause and consequence of gender inequality and the Government is committed to tackling gender inequality.

We know that crimes of violence against women can have a devastating effect on victims; their families and friends who hear about it and see its impact.

Historically, male domination has led to this issue being neglected. This is not a criticism of men but something that does not happen to an individual is not going to be at the top of their agenda. It was the advent of about 100 Labour women MPs in 1997 that put this at the top of the Government's agenda, where it remains. When this influx of women occurred, there were in the House of Commons All Party Groups to campaign on issues such as whisky, beer, cider and for every Indian Ocean Island it would be nice to visit. There was nothing about violence against women so the new women set one up, campaigned and made progress. Now men in government have understood it and have taken it up. It is as much Alan Johnson as Harriet Harman who drive it forward.

All of us, men and women together, including the Government, have a responsibility to address violence against women: within our communities, at our places of work and within our society at large.

As a government, over the last few months we have consulted on a cross-government strategy on violence against women which we will be launching shortly. This strategy will explicitly address ways to improve all our work, across all departments and, of course, it depends on getting engagement with committed people like you.

As a government we are resolutely committed to improving performance on rape prosecutions and the response to sexual violence - 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.

Earlier today you heard about the role of the National Support team, who are instrumental in rolling out SARCs more widely and ensuring the delivery model is sound.

We know that there are challenges to delivering effectively on the ground across agencies, which is why the National Support team visits and problem solving work through a range of experts is so vital.

I find it very encouraging to hear about all the work that the Department of Health is now doing in partnership across Government and other agencies. I want to pay homage to the work done by my colleague Ann Keen from whom you heard earlier today.

I look forward to the results of the Deparrtment of Health Taskforce on the health aspects of violence against women chaired by Sir George Alberti, to see what more the NHS can do.

Let me mention a strong reason why this is not only a criminal justice system matter. Sexual violence can have a profound impact on victims. As well as causing physical injury, sometimes immediate and sometimes long-lasting, its impact on mental health can be serious and may be equally long lasting.

So if Health is not involved to provide support at an early stage serious repercussions can follow for victims and their families.

For example, the Fawcett Commission report on women and the criminal justice system looked at both victims and defendant women in the CJS. We found that all the evidence that came from women as victims was about domestic violence and rape. For defendants, we found that at least 50% of women in prison have experienced domestic violence - twice as many as in the population at large. About a third of women offenders have been raped, higher than in the general population. In effect we were talking about the same people. Experiences of violence and abuse can be a key factor in women's pathways to crime; if the issue is not addressed early enough by health services, we can do little to support women to stop offending.

Let us look at the Criminal Justice system, where my experience lies.

The multiple rape - Reid and Worboys - cases (Worboys was the taxi driver case ) show a need to address attitudes which surround rape. The problem with these two cases was not getting victims to report - they reported - but the public authorities didn't take the appropriate action.

Many of the women had been given a drink at the time and so were perceived as likely to be poor and unsympathetic witnesses. Of course, he gave them a drink. We make too little of the fact that much rape is serial offending. We make too little of the fact that serial rapists target women who have had a drink or to whom they can give drink or women with vulnerabilities, all of which they know will cause the criminal justice system to think that they will not carry the day in court and so perhaps the statutory authorities, with low expectation of a good outcome, will not drive the case forward strongly enough.

The problem was not public confidence in the way in which rape complaints are handled but the response of public authorities. It wasn't long ago that we had a similar problem with domestic violence and we have started make headway there, we can do the same with rape if we go about it in the right way.

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.

There must be skilled, committed, collaborative working at local level. We know that none of this is achievable without the contributions to addressing these issues from the voluntary sector. I am pleased that more is being done to improve the commissioning process of vital third sector services.

Let me highlight two strands of work in the criminal justice system.

The first is an attempt to neutralise myths that can interfere with jury deliberations in trials. There is a myth that if someone is raped they will complain of it immediately. If someone does not, the defence will often suggest that she was happy with sex at the time but something must have made her change her mind later.

In other words, the defence say that a late complaint is a false complaint. Of course we know that it is common for women who have been raped not to report the matter at once because they are traumatised, full of guilt and shame, questioning their own judgement about being with the man in the first place.

In a case called Doody the Court of Appeal said that trial judges should say in that kind of case that although a late complaint may be untrue, often people do complain late because of those factors. It can redress the otherwise unfair assumption a jury might make. Such a direction impacts backwards because if the statutory agencies think that a late complaint can be attacked as untrue, they may not hold out much hope of trial but if there is an antidote to the myth at trial, police and CPS may feel that the prospects are stronger.

We have got a panel of experts to work out all the myths they believe may have an effect and we got Treasury Counsel to draft possible direction for judges to use to bust these myths. It is entirely up to the judges but they may feel able to take on some or all of these myth busting directions and thus provide what I would describe as a fairer framework for juries. And again these will impact backwards, as it were, into the investigation and prosecution.

An example of a myth that may travel in the reverse direction is that rape victims will always suffer physical injury - sexual injury. Forensic medical examiners can explain that absence of injury is not necessarily inconsistent with an allegation of rape. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, leaving the defence to comment that rape was unlikely because the evidence is that she was not injured. If that myth is busted by making the evidence clear, it will impact forward onto the trial.

Baroness Stern Review
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.

As I mentioned,we consulted on violence against women this summer but we received most evidence about domestic violence and less about rape. So we think we need more evidence and have asked Baroness Stern, an independent cross-bench peer to hold an inquiry into rape and to:-
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; and make recommendations.

Let me mention the CPS, which is my particular ministerial responsibility.

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.

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. Its key role is to bring more offenders of violence against women crimes to justice.

It has a new violence against women indicator, including targets for increasing successful outcomes in domestic violence, rape and sexual offences:

• Last April the 2009 target of 59% successful rape prosecutions was nearly met at 58% during so this year it goes up to 61%The target of 72% for domestic violence was met and so it goes up this year to 74%;
• There is specific guidance for prosecutors on Violence against Women disseminated across all Areas - because there are still postcode issues.
• There has been coordination and strengthening of Area coordinators and specialist prosecutors; we have got over the conundrum of who will train rape prosecutors when we haven't been prosecuting very much rape - that has gone.
• Annual measurement of the satisfaction of stakeholders has been introduced and there are constant improvements to training.

In addition, the CPS intends to measure victim and other stakeholders satisfaction. This is not easy. The criminal justice system generally measures satisfaction by a survey called WAVES which depends on a phone call questionnaire. This cannot be used with such sensitive cases, so the CPS is developing a system to measure the support for and satisfaction of women victims of violence, across the criminal justice system.It will ensure that Witness Care Units have support systems and information on specialist support for victims and witnesses and for all communities.

Conclusion
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 still 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. Events like this are so very important to achieving these aims.

I am so pleased that many of you here today are in positions where you will be able to take up this challenge and directly influence for the better. I would like to commend you all on your efforts so far. We must prevent cases like Worboys and Reid from occurring, devastating so many victims'lives.Because though women had the confidence to report somewhere the system failed them and, almost, by neglect allowed this awful repeated victimisation.

Now I look forward to the feedback from your workshops but let us all remember those horrible cases and that they will recur if we do not get this right.Let us go forward together with determination in the most ambitious possible anti-violence against women programmes to ensure that instead of such cases, we contribute to making the community a safer place for all.