Justice must not continue to fail the victims of rape

Published on Tuesday 9 June 2009 21:32

IN MAY, the Home Office published the first European-wide study of rape conviction rates. It revealed that Britain came bottom of the 33 countries studied. In 2006-7, the proportion of reported rapes that ended in a conviction was just 6.5 per cent in England and Wales, and a tiny 2.9 per cent in Scotland. France, by comparison, had a conviction rate of 25 per cent.

The Scottish Parliament is to be congratulated for taking direct action to improve rape conviction rates. In 2006, Elish Angiolini, then Solicitor General, announced that the Crown would always have a presumption in favour of initiating a rape prosecution, provided there was credible evidence. The new Sexual Offences Bill, presently going through Holyrood, will introduce a tighter definition of what constitutes lack of consent. This includes a victim being incapable through alcohol.

As a result of these moves and others, the conviction rate in Scotland – as a proportion of reported rapes – has increased to 3.7 per cent in 2007-8. This is progress and should be welcomed. However, it represents no great step change in convictions, merely modest progress in the right direction. It is no cause for cheering.

Indeed, because more cases are being taken to court, thanks to Ms Angiolini, the percentage of jury trials for rape that end in convictions is actually down. This can be dismissed as a statistical anomaly, especially as more rapists in total are going to jail. But any hint that rape trials favour the accused could lead victims to decide it is not even worth reporting an assault.

What still needs to be done? First, we need to look again at what defines corroboration in rape cases. Rape usually takes place with only the perpetrator and victim present, making legal proof of an assault difficult to produce in court. Yet it is possible to extend the definition of admissible circumstantial evidence, including the context in which sex takes place and the past sexual convictions of the accused.

Next, even with the new-found vigour on the part of the Crown to pursue prosecutions, the vast majority of rape cases are discontinued at the police investigation stage. This remains the bottleneck for justice. It could be because police forces are still reluctant to believe a woman's testimony regarding an alleged assault. For instance, John Worboys, the London taxi driver who drugged, raped and molested more than 100 women, was left free to attack because police officers did not believe victims' reports of being offered champagne then assaulted, or at the very least thought the women were culpable. Aside from better training and more specialist police rape units, one solution to this problem might be to ensure that victim reports are properly filed and constantly cross-referenced, even in cases where no prosecution takes place immediately.

Only one in 25 reported rape cases ends in a conviction. Until that changes substantially, Holyrood, the courts and the police must bear responsibility for a glaring failure of justice.

Voters could benefit from sale of the century

SIR Peter Viggers, the Tory MP who gained notoriety by claiming 1,645 of parliamentary allowances for a floating duck house, is to sell it to raise money for charity. Sir Peter also claimed nearly 500 of taxpayers' money for 28 tons of manure. This has led some to ask why, with the House of Commons knee deep in manure, an MP should want to acquire even more.

However, Sir Peter's public spirited desire to recoup the cost of his duck house raises the thought that other MPs might follow suit. Those who claimed for expensive plasma televisions include Jim Sheridan, Michael Connarty, Ruth Kelly and Shahid Malik. Doubtless these have depreciated in value though countless hours of watching Newsnight but they might still fetch a few bob. Alternatively, they could be donated en masse to an old folk's home. Sadly, the claim by Jacqui Smith (or rather her husband) for access to TV porn channels is not transferable, being for one night only. Still, if the former Home Secretary wants to be helpful, she could always raffle her husband's DVD collection.

Nor is it easy for Alistair Darling to do much about the public money he spent on getting professional advice regarding on his personal tax situation. Perhaps he could offer his constituents a few hours of his own time to fill in their own HMRC tax forms.

Ofgem must empower investors

THE Scottish Government's drive to make Scotland the "Saudi Arabia" of renewable energy has taken a leap forward in credibility. This comes with the announcement by Iberdrola, the Spanish owner of ScottishPower, that the company plans to build as many as five more giant wind farms north of the Border, on the same scale as its operation at Whitelee, near Glasgow. Whitelee is the most powerful wind farm in Europe, to date.

Iberdrola is also looking to offshore sites near Tiree and, eventually, to investing heavily in tidal power, as technology improves.

To have a player such as Iberdrola sign up to the vision of Scotland as a major renewable energy exporter is an important step forward, especially as the firm is putting its cash where its mouth is. However, as Iberdrola points out, unless there are new transmission lines to take the power southwards or across the North Sea, this is a vision that will be stillborn.

Permission to build new transmission lines is still being held up by lengthy planning inquiries. And the biased pricing policy used by Ofgem, the electricity regulator, means Scottish renewable generators are penalised financially for exporting down the electricity grid, while English coal and nuclear generators, which are closer to southern markets, are actually being subsidised.

Ofgem policy is wrong and it is a barrier to free trade in Scottish renewable power. That policy must change.