More than 180 alleged rape victims in England and Wales have faced more than two years of delays since their case first went to court, with a senior judge announcing plans to clear the “serious stain” on the justice system by the end of July.
The senior presiding judge for England and Wales, Lord Justice Edis, said that most of the targeted cases were sent to the crown court by magistrates courts in the summer of 2021 and so were now approaching their three-year anniversary, calling it a “significant injustice”.
He said that they had been delayed by a series of “shocks”, initially affected in 2021 by the Covid pandemic and then the following year by the criminal barristers’ strike as he warned there was still a shortage of barristers.
Referring to the 181 cases, which he said represented approximately 6% of the total rape caseload and included adult and child alleged victims, Edis said: “This is an unacceptable state of affairs from the point of view of the complainants, the witnesses, the defendants and justice generally … This is an initiative to get rid of what I think is a serious stain on our system.”
He said that after the cases had been cleared judges would look to target those approaching two years to ensure that the timeframe is not breached again. The aim is to reduce the average time from start to completion for rape cases in the crown court, which stands at 358 days when the defendant is on bail.
But Edis expressed concern about a survey published last month by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which found that 64% of prosecutors said that they would not be reapplying to be on the list for rape and serious sexual offences (Rasso) list, with most citing poor fees.
He acknowledged that suitably qualified barristers in rape cases were already “in particularly short supply”, adding: “Our system requires a substantial supply of skilled and experienced advocates in all our offence categories, but nowhere more than in rape and other serious sexual offences.
“If that supply is threatened, for whatever reason, our capacity to deal with the work is inhibited and that is a significant limiting factor. We hope that there will be work done on investment made in the long term in order to sustain that necessary supply of skilled people working in the system.”
Ciara Bergman, CEO of Rape Crisis England and Wales, said: “We welcome efforts to make the process less traumatic and are pleased to see that those rape cases which have been languishing in the backlog are now going to be listed as a priority. This is something we called for in our Breaking Point report and we hope this marks a turning point in how rape and sexual abuse cases are resourced in the medium to longer term, too.”
Delays are not confined to the crown courts. According to CBA analysis, in the second quarter of last year a total of 211 bailed rape trials completed with an average charge to completion time of 558 days, compared with 262 bailed rape trials in the first quarter of 2018, with an average charge to completion time of 328 days.
Tana Adkin KC, chair of the CBA, backed Edis’s initiative but added: “If the government is serious about prioritising rape cases then it needs to urgently invest in the dedicated workforce who are specially trained in this work. We are unable to retain and recruit the brightest and the best barristers to Rasso work if fees remain unequal between prosecution and defence and remuneration remains low when compared to other work.”
It is expected that some of the 181 cases will not be completed by the end of July due to exceptional reasons but complainants will be able to ask the courts for an explanation.
