80 new rape courts

[CassieMaddox]

Labour pledging this as part of their manifesto commitment to reduce VAWG.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/08/labour-pledges-80-new-courts-in-bid-to-tackle-backlog-crisis

So pleased to see an actual tangible action targeted at something that will help women. I'm looking forward to seeing what else is in their manifesto now.

Labour cannot simultaneously make the GRC process as easy as self identifying with one letter from any GP (who is not in a position to diagnose a psychiatric condition) and claim they won't bring in Self ID.

They cannot bring in a policy to address rape with nowhere to put the rapists.

And they are relying on a Tory policy for their data. Who they say are lying about everything else.

What are the chances that this is the one thing they are not lying about?

My cousin is one, family law.

She says the emphasis can be moved over time to improve rape convictions.

Comes down to aspiration doesn't it, do we accept that we have effectively decriminalised rape or do we have the desire to change this?

As Starmer was knighted for his work at the CPS, i would suggest he knows what he is talking about a little more than the critics on this thread who, lets face it, are offering nothing more but criticism and no new ideas.

Well, it IS a lie that Labour will bring in self ID and you know it too.

They have said, as Kemi Badenoch also said, 2 years ago, that they want to simplify the process and will have a wide spread consultation on the subject, so you have no crystal ball, we just don't know the outcome.

ATM 96% of applicants get a GRC, so a 2 year self ID process.

If there are no places to put rapists, thats down to the Tories and austerity but is that a reason to do nothing about the situation?

i don't think so.

That's great @Alexandra2001 so where will he put anyone found guilty of rape?

I don't think anyone is saying it's a bad policy, just not really doable unless the intention is to find them all not guilty and just clear them off the books.

@CassieMaddox I totally get where you’re coming from but the sexual assault/rape courts are in such a bad mess we are worried that these courts IF they go ahead will still drag all the issues that blight them. Some of those issues are really important and needs urgently fixing.

it’s like promising to put more busses on to help people get to work but the buses are death traps. More busses are a great idea but they need fixing first

Well, if its true we need to train up barristers etc then that gives time to build prisons and rebuild the prison staff and probation services.

14 years of terrible investment cannot be put right even within one term.

Took Blair 8 years to make improvements (that the public noticed) to the NHS and he had a better economy to assist him in this.

We ve an independent justice system.

This is my worry. Statistically it looks great on paper but realistically it’s not great for the women actually going through it

Well, we either try and change it or we vote back in the Tories and they will let the justice system collapse even further.

Off tack but its the same with the 600,000 women awaiting gynae treatment, many on lists for 2 or 3 years.....

Do we just fold our arms and say "oh well, at least Sunak knows what a woman is" OR do we try and put things right???

I know which one i want.

Manifestos and pledges like this are always a headline statement.

The detail is underneath it and Labour have consistently talked about their VAWG strategy since conference.

Starmer was DPP so has first hand experience of how to change the prosecutions system, I do not think he would have pledged this if he didn't think he could do it.

I know Boris was a fan of fag packet policies but let's not tar all politicians with his brush, otherwise it becomes a popularity contest and that's not good for the country as it means charismatic liars and narcissists will promise the world and deliver nothing.

I think Labour are saying they will prioritise the fixing and treat it with the urgency it needs.

No other party has even acknowledged it as far as I am aware.

^100%

So Labour have specifically said they are not going to over promise, thats tough for people like me that want them to be more radical but perhaps its the best plan?

We've all had enough of liars.

Yet they want to make getting a grc even easier, and refuse to countenance firming up the equality act to mean born sex.

In practice this will mean self id.

I don't know how much plainer we can make this for you.

If legal sex is a thing, then legal sex is what will matter when putting people in prison. And hospital wards and sports and counselling and toilets and .....

More weasel words from Labour. There has never been a shortage of court space.

Empty courtrooms across the land are echoing from the complete lack of staff, judges and wider infrastructure needed to administrate the case backlog already waiting. Starmer knows this perfectly well. And that’s before the woeful lack of rape cases even getting to the police and point of charging.

I very much look forward to being proved wrong and seeing the manifesto and budget to go along with the unbuttered parsnips we are being fed.

🙄
Making it quicker to go through an existing process that already has a 96% success rate is not going to increase the numbers of men with a GRC saying they are legally women.

The Conservatives are also supporting the "legally women" thing and making the process quicker.

This is "self ID thing" is nonsense and scaremongering. It's also boring at this point.

I'd rather see the tens of thousands of rapists that are getting away with it every year being dealt with, than obsess about the semantics of a process that less than 6000 people have used ever.

Well now seems like an excellent time to identify as a judge.

I’ve read the article and all it’s says really is more courts and tougher sentencing.

We know how incredibly difficult it is to meet the CPS threshold,( only 3% get prosecuted ) then the woman life is literally ransacked and she her self is put on trial, now we have judges ordering women to call their rapists ‘she’. And then only 60% get a guilty verdict. A tiny tiny number despite rape allegations shooting up.

So a lot of work is needed before they just start flying through back logged cases.

What has a 96% success rate?

The existing GRC process

Mic drop.

This is a rather depressing look at the statistics. THIS needs fixing before the cases ( if they do) get sped through

https://victimscommissioner.org.uk/news/the-distressing-truth-is-that-if-you-are-raped-in-britain-today-your-chances-of-seeing-justice-are-slim/

Ah ok I though you meant rape convictions

What particular aspect are you talking about? It says this:
If you defy the odds and secure a charge, you will likely have to wait the best part of three years from reporting before you will get to trial. Along the way, your trial date will almost certainly be fixed, then cancelled and then relisted months into the future
This is what Labour are trying to sort out.

Last month, the National Audit Office said it no longer believed that the Ministry of Justice’s ambition to reduce the overall backlog of cases to 53,000 by March 2025 was achievable. Of the 67,573 cases awaiting trial, almost a fifth (18%) are sexual offences

Absolutely awful state of affairs. Plus overcrowding in prisons mean there’s nowhere to put the existing violent male (predominantly) offenders.

Yep. The Tories have well and truly fucked it up. Can't wait to see the back of them so it can start to be fixed.

But they won’t got to prison if they don’t go to court! Plus there’s the ECSL (early release)