Rape prosecutions

[JuliaScurr]

Have you seen this? Have things improved that much?
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/30/rape-victims-acquittals-chief-prosecutor

On Woman's Hour now

I like that it was on the front page, at least here in the North West.

This:
"Saunders is in charge of the biggest CPS division in England and Wales. Last year, it considered 870 suspected rapes, and sent half of them to trial.
Of those, just over 50% ended up with convictions."

My bold so about 220 convictions, this despite the "'attrition' rate - those cases that end in acquittal, has been dropping."

Saunders is on BBC Women's Hour right now. Demonisation of Women and the impact on juries.

So it's about a quarter of reported rapes that end in conviction. Assuming onnly 10% are reported, that gives - 2.5% of all rapists are convicted. Not bad odds. Can't see them losing much sleep over that.
Saunders has been talking up the social/political attitudes, (but not practices/structures) that cause rape and the way it's treated in court
Will she be dismissed as easily as the rest of us have been?

Do the police send them all to the cps then?

The police will send possible criminal cases to the CPS and it's up to the CPS to decide if prosecution takes place.

Saunders does say that "Judges cannot do rape cases unless they are specialists and they have been through the myth-busting courses."

I find this quite scary given some of the sentancing and comments Judges have made, especially regarding under age sex.

It doesn't help that in a recent case of young, underage girls were raped by some footballers and the media described it as an 'orgy in the park'. How that doesn't affect the jury is beyond me.

So in that case it's less than that 2.5% as that 50% figure is those that are with the cps not those reported overall.

I didn't read it properly, as has been pointed out to me elsewhere
no change then?

I genuinely didn't know the answer to that. Wasn't being cantankerous honest.

Great that she is highlighting the issue.

Great, yes. But also unexpected