The Law Commission’s recommendations include placing greater restrictions on the use of complainants’ personal records relating to their sexual behaviour
long had the lowest charging rate of all crimes. To a degree this is inevitable. The crime is defined by the absence of consent, which can be tricky to establish. The accused and complainant tend to be the only witnesses. Reporting sexual crimes is often delayed, meaning no physical evidence.
It is not clear why charges have fallen so far. Some reckon that changes to the way the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether or not to bring a case to court has played a part. Prosecutors have also become increasingly likely to ask to see everything on a complainant’s phone, “making an already distressing process feel even more intrusive”, according to one government report.
Going to trial can be the worst—and most off-putting—part of the criminal-justice process. That insight lies behind a new consultation paper on sexual-offence trials published on May 23rd by the Law Commission, an independent body that reviews laws in England and Wales. Harriet Bland, a lawyer at the Centre for Women’s Justice, says such notions have long influenced the way the criminal-justice system treats rape. The use of personal documentation, including therapy notes, in investigations and trials is a particularly egregious example. “Rape is the only crime for which the victim’s credibility immediately comes into question,” she says.
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