Live webchat with Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, Tuesday 13 March, 9.30-10.30am

[RowanMumsnet]

As part of our week supporting our 'We Believe You' campaign, we're very pleased to welcome Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosections, for a webchat on Tuesday, 13 March at 9.30am. He'll be happy to address questions raised by 'We Believe You'.

Keir was called to the Bar in 1987 and appointed Queen's Counsel in 2002. Before being appointed DPP, his main areas of practice were human rights, international law, judicial review and criminal law. He was named QC of the Year in the field of human rights and public law in 2007 by the Chambers & Partners directory, and in 2005 he won the Bar Council's Sydney Elland Goldsmith award for his outstanding contribution to pro bono work in challenging the death penalty throughout the Caribbean and also in Uganda, Kenya and Malawi.

He was appointed as Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in November 2008. Since being appointed, Keir has spoken publicly about the need to improve the way we prosecute cases of violence against women and girls. The second annual CPS Lecture was given by Baroness Stern on "The crime of rape and justice for victims". In April last year, Keir made a speech about "Domestic Violence: The facts, the issues, the future".

Keir is married and has two children: a son aged three, and a daughter aged one.

Because of Keir's professional responsibilities, the CPS has asked us to make a few things clear. Prosecutors take a case from pre-charge (giving the police advice in a complex investigation) through to verdict. The CPS authorises charges in serious or complex cases, including all charges of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence. Keir will be happy to address general questions raised by the We Believe You campaign, but please be aware that he won't be able to discuss the specifics of any cases, including those that are currently under investigation or going through the courts. Sentencing itself is a matter for the judiciary rather than the CPS, and as such it would be difficult for Keir to discuss the specifics of sentencing in any case. Finally (and somewhat obviously), changes in the law are a matter for Parliament rather than for Keir himself.

Do please join us on Tuesday at 9.30am for the webchat. If you can't join us live, please post up your questions for Keir here in advance.

My own view is that cases should go to the court where the trial will be as quickly as possible. So I'm not in favour of cases being delayed in the magistrates courts. Frankly, the shorter the period from incident to trial the better.

@justalittleinsane

I would like to know why there is the ridiculous step of sendin a rapist to magistrates merely for him to be committed to crown.

He doesn't even enter a plea at magistrates and it is simply a paper pushing exercise causing more delays for the victims and I assume increasing the costs of the case for the court.

A months wait for a CPS charging decision, a future 2 weeks for rapist to return from bail, another month to get to magistrates, followed by 6 week wait for a PCMH. Then at least 5 months from the PCMH for Crown - and that's in a good week.

So it's a minimum of 10 months just to get to court.

So my actual question is 2 fold.

A) why the antiquated magistrates court step
And
B) do you think those timescales are acceptable in situations where he police investigation is completed at early stages

Thank you - it's nice to know you don't agree with it - but are there any present plans to change the system so it no longer happens?

Rape is not prosecuted differently, the code for Crown Prosecutors governs all our cases but there are some additional features, so for example, we have trained rape specialist, rape coordinators and specialist rape policies.

@painterlyswoosh

In your opinion, is rape a crime that is by its nature dramatically "different" in how it should be prosecuted?

This is an issue that often comes up in discussion of this topic. The argument being that whether or not sex is rape depends solely on whether or not one party says no - and it is almost always impossible to get evidence that doesn't end up being his word against hers/his.

Do you agree with this argument and the conclusion that it should be treated differently by prosecutors?

We do encourage male victims to come forward- all our policies refer to male victims as well as female victims and we do not discriminate in our approach.

@Roseformeplease

In the light of a really interesting article in today's Times, do you think more should be done to encourage male victims of rape to feel comfortable coming forward, as well as making it easier for women?

I have to sign off now, but thanks for all your questions which raise really important issues. This debate and the 'We Believe You' campaign and i think its important that the CPS studies not only the comments but also the Mumsnet survey results. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Thanks, of you are interested in MN comments you might also want to read this old thread.

Thank you that was very informative.

Thank you Kier.

I also wonder if it is worth the DPP pressing the Bar Council to see if there could be a standard imposed for defence Counsel who wish to be involved in rape cases. Everything is being more and more regulated so why not say you can only act for the defendant in a trial if you have attained a certain level of excellence/training. This would weed out the crappy Counsel who think the way to cross-examine is make the complainant cry. Perhaps say that only those who have are level 4 prosecutors can act (for the defendant) in such serious cases. Just a thought...

Late coming to this, but wanted to add my thanks to Kier Starmer for taking the time to do this.

Damn, I missed the actual live Q&A (had to work!) but reading through it now.

Thanks again for doing this.

I was raped twice as a child and what I would ask is what CPS is doing to end the situation whereby a defendant in a rape case is treated as innocent until proven guilty, whereas the victim is treated as guilty (of lying) until proven innocent. Society - media, men, police and judiciary - starts from two very different stand points depending on the gender of the perpetrator/victim which allows the perpatrator of the crime to go free more often than not. Simply saying it comes down to his word against hers is not good enough - we do not treat burglary, mugging or any other crime as a case of the victim has to prove she is not lying first and foremost. I believe that rape and sexist violence as a whole (DV) is treated in a radically different manner than any other crime by a male dominated system trying to cover up the extent of male on female crime.

It's a shame that this decision came too late to ask Kier about it.

That is an excellent point very well made Vickiw.

Sardine - that case is and

It's absolutely shocking isn't it.
There is a thread in feminism topic at the mo with people expressing disgust.

I can't find an answer to my first question, which is the one that mattered to me the more; and which relates very much to Vickiw1's important question.

Why do rape defence counsels go after alleged rape victims about whether they told a lie, even about an unrelated matter? Why is this allowed to take place?

Rape is not prosecuted and defended like other crimes as long as this happens, and is allowed to happen.

It's a massive rape myth - catch the victim out on one lie, and she's a habitual liar....

Thanks Kier, some food for thought on a tough topic.

On a lighter note, where do you get your hair blow dried?

Keir,

On the We Believe You thread on Mumsnet, a poster with the nickname dogparadise reports a miscarriage of justice which saw her jailed for allegedly lying about being stalked and raped.

Many Mumsnetters have rightly expressed their concerns about this, not least the verdict, the reporting, the behaviour of the judge and the jury, the sentence, the alleged failings in process, and the lack of self-review by the CPS.

Will you agree, in the spirit of this campaign, to review this case and report back to MN and the wider public on lessons learned?

Thank you.

Keir what percentage of reported rapes are prosecuted?

And what percentage of supposedly false allegations of rape are prosecuted?

Keir,

Upthread you say

As for, false reporting, this is in fact very rare indeed and a very, very small percentage of the rape allegations made, fall into this category. We now have very clear policy about these cases which i think and I hope has met with a good deal of public approval.

Could you please explain that comment about the 'very clear policy' further, especially in light of BasilFoulTea's pertinent question?

Thank you.

I asked this question upthread and he ignored it:

"Are you concerned by the number of rape victims being prosecuted for supposedly making false reports of rape, and what effect do you think those prosecutions will have on rape victims coming forward, given how few we know do at the moment out of the number of women actually raped."

I would like to also add my voice to the request for a review of dogparadise case.

Keir seemed to miss my post of Tue 13-Mar-12 08:56:19 - so I will repeat as it is relevant to the new posts added here:

I seem to remember reading that all cases of "false rape allegation" (perverting the course of justice) - are now passed personally to you for review.

Can you confirm this and can you also reassure people that if the police fail to find enough corroborating evidence of rape that this does not equal a false rape allegation?

What sort of evidence exists that these false rape allegations are indeed false - particularly when we know that some factors that the public might think are persuasive of this are in fact rape myths (delay in reporting/not telling anyone else/retracting due to threat of violence/continuing a relationship with the rapist). The Daily Mail some papers LOVE these stories and report them out of proportion with rape cases - what can be done about that?

Hello everybody, first I'd like to support dogparadise fight, second... I'd like to be believed too!
Posted my brief story on this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/1424654-We-Believe-You-were-launching-our-rape-awareness-campaign-today?msgid=30624901#30624901
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Anyway, as you can assume from my nick, I live in Scotland (upper Highlands). Different law system but same treatment towards rape abuse victims!!!
And it also seems that the Northern Constabulary fancies a lot to accuse more the rape victims then the rapists!!
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www.northern-times.co.uk/Home/Ardgay-woman-jailed-after-false-rape-claims-5542131.htm
brennybaby.blogspot.com/2011/12/police-in-scottish-highlands-condemned.html
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In my opinion, police forces all over UK are deterring rape victims to come forward, given that the percentage rate of rape victims who get prosecuted is higher than the one regarding the rapists!!!

LapsusLinguae, I was asked, while releasing my first statement, all of the questions you asked Keirstarmer, i.e. why I had delayed in reporting him, why I hadn't telling anyone else, why I had continued a relationship with the rapist. This translated in a "false rape accusation" for them. No corroborative evidence, so you're lying. It's not a myth, it's true.
They didn't even treat my case as domestic abuse, which it was making more sense because I had reported him for a series of other abuses together with the rape.