CPS consultation: "Help us improve how we explain our work on rape and serious sexual assault"

[HeadPain]

"Help us improve how we explain our work on rape and serious sexual assault"

mobile.twitter.com/CPSUK/status/1453659687480696834

"We’re committed to improving the information we provide to victims about the way we charge and prosecute rape and serious sexual assault.

Today we’ve launched a step-by-step guide to take victims and their supporters through the trial process.

Take a look www.cps.gov.uk/rasso-victims-guide "

"We're determined to drive up the number of cases going to court so that more victims see justice.

We’d like your feedback on our new guide for victims of rape and serious sexual assault, to make sure we’re getting it right.

Have your say - www.cps.gov.uk/rasso-feedback "

Hmmm...

@Felix125

Is this the case Bater-James & Anor ?

The Allen case in no way made a case for the CPS’s disproportionate (inspectorates word) demands for records, or the police’s once routine demands for phones. It does make the case for significantly more resources and professionalism when investigating sex crimes though. Those records had already been taken from the victim. They were in police hands they just hadn’t, despite requests from the defense been looked at properly or disclosed. And unless you know something about the case that wasn’t in the papers, the messages cast significant doubt on the prosecution’s case but did not exonerate (a strong word) Allen. If the police had done their job properly they would have been able to investigate and either stopped the prosecution or provided more testimony to put the messages in context. It was a shambles, but not because the police and CPS were reluctant to demand phones from victims.

Felix as a serving police officer can I ask why you decided to comment on this thread?

One thread with a handful of posters. On one corner of one chat board on a site that is predominantly used by women.

The thread title is bland- CPS launch consultation into their information pages process around sex offences.

Dealing with sex offences is a small part of your job. And given you had never heard of sapphire and didn't react to warboys and Reid being mentioned- things which were very widely covered in the media. And I'd have thought of interest to anyone with an interest in the topic esp a serving police officer. I'm thinking it's not a topic you have a keen interest in.

What drew you here?

What do you want to achieve by joining and basically arguing with women who are taken aback by the nature and timing of this CPS consultation?

I don't really get it tbh.

I notice that you recognise the name Liam Allen.. But not sapphire and from comments no recognition warboys Reid.

You say you don't know about sapphire because met. That feels a bit flimsy to me. In my (massive) industry press esp anything negative is of interest..circulated discussed etc. Huge appalling cock ups which are all over the media for ages, definitely of huge interest.

If forces have zero interest whatsoever in really bad things in other forces then that indicates a sort of local tribalism and artificial separation. I'd assume that this stuff would be useful to check local processed checks etc are solid and working well.

When the police say lessons learned then it means one force then, which I find worrying.

Final points!

1. It's not about you. What you personally do. Why have you taken comments as challenging you personally?

'Of course there have been mistakes, coverups and corruption in the past and I'm not trying to defend them at all - but are you saying that's the norm. If you are, you first have to demonstrate the trend as opposed to individual incidents. So, of all sexual offences reported are you saying that 100% of them fail due to corruption or is it 1% (or lower) as i think the numbers are relevant here.'

You are putting words in my mouth and then saying I need to justify them.

You keep saying I need to prove that the police fail many rape victims and have done for years. You're in the police. Surely it's on you to prove that they don't?

The fact failures have been in the news, high profile, for years and years is not.. relevant? There've been official reports including recently, a host of lessons learned and apologies. In the last few days there's been s host of headlines about sex offences and the police and appalling stats and procedures highlighted.

You are oblivious to all that and you insist I prove what anyone who reads the news won't have missed?

I can't fathom what good you think you are doing here re women, sex offences, police? Unless your aim is to make the police look even worse in which case you've done a great job.

NumberTheory
Indeed - Allen brought up the fact there were text messages on his phone from the victim in his interview. The OIC failed to disclose these messages to the defence.

Hence the change in the disclosure schedules that now go CPS for all cases. Obviously, in this case you can see why the victim's phone would need to be examined. And yes, the police may have discontinued the case before it reached a charging decision based on the inconsistencies from the victims account. But by doing this new procedure, we can take the onus of the OIC away from what is actually disclosed. We now work on a principle that everything is disclosable.

As aside, it also lengthens the amount of time for a charging decision The amount of material disclosable is huge and equates to a small rain forest of paper for each case file - most of it being too big a file size to send electronically. And I know most of it will never be read by anyone other than me - but that's another issue.

NiceGerbil
What drew me here? - I guess the title "CPS consultation: "Help us improve how we explain our work on rape and serious sexual assault" interested me a little. And i just wanted to add my two penneth.

Yes, I recognise Warboys & Reid - I wasn't aware I had to specifically reference them. You keep mentioning sapphire - like i say, it was a Met Police operation - what ever recommendations came from that which have been implemented nationally may not be directly named after that operation. There will be literally thousands & thousands of police operations nationwide which i will not be able to name, but may later have an impact on how we deal with things. It similar to case law which is also huge and directly effects policing, but i won't be expected to name them all. Its not 'tribalism' and any recommendations as a result will be rolled out across the country - such as the changes to disclosure which is not just from the Allen case.

"Its not about you" - I know it isn't, but you were the one who asked what I did and what my back ground was - I was merely answering your question.

For your second point, you mentioned earlier:
"Surely the problem is that hardly any cases get anywhere near court? That's a police and CPS problem and that its essentially pointless reporting sex offences to police."

At no point have I ever said that there are not failings in the police - and yes you can quote various things in the news, lessons learned etc - I'm not trying to discount that.

I'm asking is this a specific trend across the board or more a case of individual failings in specific forces?

And if the majority of cases do not get anywhere near court and its a police problem - how can the police rectify that problem?
Is it the issues for the victim/witness at court, being cross examined - or is it earlier than this? Should all rape cases be heard at court regardless of the possible outcome? A lot of victims do not want to pursue the matter at all but are happy to report it to the police and have it 'logged'.

I know its anecdotal but a lot say to me that they want to come to terms with it for themselves and not have to re-live it all again at court - so they are happy to give their account to me and leave it at that and work with the support services we can offer. So that will go down as another undetected crime of rape. But - should we classify that as something other than an 'undetected crime' to give a fairer overview of crime outcomes?

I don't know.

I'm not here trying to say I have all the answers - and I am interested in other peoples views on the subject. And yes, its a shame that there are only a handful of posters on here as i think its an important issue to talk about.

@Felix125

NumberTheory Indeed - Allen brought up the fact there were text messages on his phone from the victim in his interview. The OIC failed to disclose these messages to the defence.

Hence the change in the disclosure schedules that now go CPS for all cases. Obviously, in this case you can see why the victim's phone would need to be examined. And yes, the police may have discontinued the case before it reached a charging decision based on the inconsistencies from the victims account. But by doing this new procedure, we can take the onus of the OIC away from what is actually disclosed. We now work on a principle that everything is disclosable.

As aside, it also lengthens the amount of time for a charging decision The amount of material disclosable is huge and equates to a small rain forest of paper for each case file - most of it being too big a file size to send electronically. And I know most of it will never be read by anyone other than me - but that's another issue.

So you are saying that instead of having an officer investigate diligently, you insist on a disproportionate amount of data from the victim and then disclose it all to the defence to cover your ass?

You don't mention if you know more about that case than was reported in the press. Because if not, your claim that Allen was "exonerated" is yet another emblematic statement of what is wrong with police attitudes to sexual assault of women.

Exonerate - absolve, acquit, discharge, dismiss - to be found not guilty of the crime.

The jury found him not guilty. How does this show "...another emblematic statement of what is wrong with police attitudes to sexual assault of women."

The suspect states in his interview that he received numerous text messages from the victim. The reports in the news suggest "...the complainant sent a series of text messages to Mr Allan asking for more sex. In fact, she wanted violent sex and spoke about wanting to be raped. In a further round of texts, she made clear to a friend that no crime had been committed. This is the type of evidence which would destroy the prosecution case..." (Moss & Co Solicitors)

To prove this we need to show that the messages have been sent from the phone belonging to the victim - not just the suspect as messages on his phone purporting to be from the victim. So, we need to examine the victims phone - how else are we supposed to investigate that line of inquiry? We can't simply ask the victim for these specific messages as the defence will argue that they may be 'selective' in what they send. And it wasn't just text messages to Allen - if she text one her friends, this will also need to be examined. Or are you saying that police should not have done this?

And I am saying that an officer needs to investigate diligently - these messages formed an important part of the enquiry which should have been examined & disclosed once Allen raised them in his interview.

What should have been done here?

Exonerate implies that there is no way he could have committed the crime, whereas, as an officer trained to handle complaints of sexual assault, you should know that victims of IPV often engage in in apparently pleasant interaction with their abuser. The messages obviously cast significant doubt, and given the lack of any investigation into the context of them, meant the trial had to be halted (not a jury decision, though). However, to suggest - as the word exonerate does - that apparently happy messages from someone who claims to have been assaulted must mean the accusation was false is emblematic of the sort of judgement women complain about the police and CPS routinely making when they do report sexual assaults and puts women off from coming forward - especially where assaults are part of an ongoing relationship.

On the phone search in this particular case - I didn’t say the phone shouldn’t have been searched this time. Given that Allan raised the messages during questioning it obviously should have been. And the data should have been looked at and followed up on.

What I said was that Allan’s case is not a justification for disproportionate requests for records from the police or CPS. You suggested that it was this case that justified CPS routinely asking for records that even the inspectorate thinks are too much. I’m pointing out this case does no such thing. This was a proportionate request that was fucked up by the OIC. It doesn’t justify disproportionate requests.

'Happy Messages' - what 'Happy Messages' are you referring to here?

The corner stone of the judicial system is - innocent until proven guilty - can we agree on that premise?

The adjudication from this case was 'not guilty'
So he was acquitted, dismissed, discharged - other words for exonerate

Ok - so if you think the word 'exonerate' is too strong a word - i will use the phrase - the adjudication of the court returned a verdict of not guilty based on the case presented to the court at that time.

Interestingly - the original victim does not appear to have asked for a re-trail.

"....emblematic of the sort of judgement women complain about the police and CPS routinely making when they do report sexual assaults and puts women off from coming forward..."

What judgement can you establish from this? The police & CPS took this case to court in order for the suspect to be trialed. There was no judgment placed on her. If anything, any 'judgements' if that is indeed a viable word, would not have come to light until her phone records were examined - which they weren't.

I haven't said that this justifies routine examinations of the victim's phones at all. We can only look at the victim's phone if its specifically relevant to the case.

The only way we can take messages from the phone of the victim initially is if the victim allows it. So, for example the victim has a message on her phone that they think is important and they send it onto to us. Or allow us the photo the screen of the phone.

Anything beyond that (ie anything that the victim hasn't voluntarily disclosed) falls into RIPA applications. These applications are scrutinised for proportionality, necessity, relevancy and any collateral intrusion. We can't just 'routinely' down load phones unless the victim has specifically allowed us to do it.

And RIPA applications get turned down all the time for proportionality, necessity, relevancy - as an example, we have a missing from home who is an adult and been missing for days - friends and family are very worried. No idea where he might be, but has has his phone with home which is turned on, powered up - he just not answering it. The quick way (and really the only way) to locate his phone & him is to track his phone via cell sites and entity data - but the RIPA was declined.

With this Allen case - I think the OIC had about 57,000 messages to go through. What i suspect has happened is that they have 'flicked through them' only. What should have happened is that the OIC should have said to the DI, CPS & the victim - "...the investigation has a new lead which is going to take a few weeks/months to examine and this will delay the case getting to court..."

So from this - a 'lessons learned' kind of thing - all cases from shop thefts to murders and anything in between must have everything disclosed at source and redacted for personal information by the OIC. You now get huge disclosure documents which must be completed - so hopefully we won't make this mistake again. This obviously has a knock on effect with work loads on the OIC which then effects the victims of crime.

The other thing as well. If the police had done the job properly in the Allen case and the phones were examined from the victim and suspect following his defence statement in his interview:

Would you have accepted that the police had 'no further actioned' the case based on the findings before seeking a charging decision?

Would you have accepted that the CPS had 'no further actioned' it

Or would you expect this to be still trialed at court?

Why do you assume that the messages would have definitely meant never get to court?

The reason it collapsed was evidence that could be pertinent not available.

Your assumption that if available in timely way, no way court.

That's interesting.

Need to catch up on thread. Your posts are unusually long tbh so may be a while..

Exonerate definitely does not mean the same as not guilty.

Aside from that.

On the mobile phones thing. Did you miss all the news commentary debate around it? Also that women reporting sex offences were being presented with a document (they may have had to sign... Can't remember) when reporting that was widely criticised? And that while at the time trials for various crimes collapsed for same reason, those crimes were not being treated in same way?

I'm interested in the anecdata bit about lots of women saying don't want to go any further as can't face court. I'm not overly familiar with things but I think you said first responder? So go along say what happened etc. They say this that but you know what forget it? They decide at first contact with police they shouldn't have reported? That's. Interesting. Do you tend to have a partner with you? I would have thought rape reports from a woman/ about a girl. Would have been offered female officers to attend. I mean not surprised if not. Not my area.

I'm not saying if the messages were available then it would definitely not have gone to court.

I'm asking (as a way forward) should we have a filter system to stop cases going to court that are not going to have any prospect of a conviction? Or should all serious cases such as this go to court regardless to have the evidence heard?

For example - if there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the victim's account is wrong or inconsistent. Say, there might be CCTV which captured the incident and it shows the victim's account is totally inconsistent - can the police discontinue the case due to the evidential difficulties? Or should it be passed to the CPS and have them make the decision to discontinue? Or should it be heard at court regardless of these evidential difficulties? This is a hypothetical incident here - I'm not basing it on anything in particular.

Police do this regularly for other crimes - should we be able to do this for crimes such as rapes?

The advantage is that this prevents the courts being overwhelmed with cases which are effectively going nowhere and allows them to bring ones with a realistic prospect of conviction in a timely manner.

Not sure about this document you mention which the victim's sign. The only ones I can think of will be their statement, medical consent form (as we need permission from them to have a statement from their doctor documenting any medical injuries from the incident). We also need their signed consent for the forensic medical procedure and their signed consent to allow support services to be able to contact them. Financial records (if relevant) may need a signed authorisation from them so the bank can access their records and provide us with statements. Like I say the phone records will either be voluntarily produced by the victim or it will go through a RIPA authority.

The first responder thing (rape trained officers). A simplified example.
So, I will be dispatched to the victim. My role is safeguarding with them as a priority. Then we need to establish where the scene is and who the suspect is. They obviously need arresting and scene protecting (which I direct others to do because of cross contamination reasons - obviously unless the circumstances mean I have no choice).

Then we get an initial account off the victim, early evidence samples (mouth wash, urine samples), seizing clothing, any other evidence such as phone messages etc - and then we take the victim for the medical examination (so long as we are in the 'forensic time window'). This is all with the consent of the victim - so they do not have to do any part of this if they don't want.

Rape trained officers are about 50/50 male to female officers on our force. A victim can request a either a male or female officer if they wish, but we tend to find that victims generally don't mind either way and don't make that specific request. They tend to explain that its the initial 15-20 minutes with an officer that's important to develop trust or a 'bond'. Once that 'bond' is established the victim will be able to tell you everything and feel comfortable in doing that. So i use this 'bonding' time by introducing myself and explaining our role and the procedure to follow. We don't usually have a partner with us and we attend the victim single crewed - usually in plain clothes and in an unmarked car.

During this 'bonding' time, the victim will share what they want to happen with this case. Some explain that they don't want to go as far as court and just want to have it reported or 'logged'. Are happy that the suspect is arrested and spend the night in the cells - but doesn't want to go through the court process later. Some want it reporting, but they don't want to go through the medical procedure. Some just want access to the support services and contact the police to get them - but if they explain to the operator that they have been raped and need support services help then we still need to log the crime, see the victim and identify/arrest the suspect.

Then beyond this, the investigation gets passed to an investigating body within the police - say CID, DV Unit, Child Abuse Unit, HBV Unit etc. Other bodies get involved - so Sex Offenders unit, Vulnerable Adults unit, Public Protection unit etc.

Sorry about the word 'bond' I know its probably not the right word - but hopefully you can see what i mean.