This Saturday, women from across the UK will describe their experiences of sexual and domestic violence in a public trial to be held in London. The event – The Rape of Justice – Who’s Guilty? – coincides with the 30th anniversary of the campaigning group, Women Against Rape (WAR). Over three decades, WAR has campaigned for changes in the law, including the recognition of rape inside marriage as a crime. It won a landmark private prosecution against a serial rapist after the Crown Prosecution Service refused to prosecute in a case brought by two prostitutes: the rapist was sentenced to 11 years. Below, in an open letter to the Solicitor-General, Vera Baird, QC, the group states why it believes that the authorities are to blame for too little being done to prosecute rapists.

Dear Ms Baird,

The legal establishment increasingly admits that the performance of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judges is not what it should be. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, QC, and Scotland Yard’s Assistant Commissioner John Yates point to “failure to put effort into investigations”, “inconsistent delivery”, and “best-practice ignored”. What should be done?

It is now widely acknowledged that the conviction rate for rape is unacceptably low (5.7 per cent for reported rape) and that all the legislation and policies put forward in the past ten years have done nothing to reverse this trend.

A former Solicitor-General, Mike O’Brien, told us that a plan of action had been introduced some time ago but that it was not implemented. Lack of implementation was also identified by the HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate report: Without Consent last year. As the Chief Inspector of the CPS Stephen Wooler put it in January 2007: “What has really got to happen now is a period of ensuring that what should be done is actually being done.”

The blame does not lie with juries but with professionals not doing their jobs.

We asked you: “Do you accept that the problem in rape cases is the police and prosecution not doing their job?” You were not sure that was correct: “Juries won’t convict, that’s a cultural question. Why is it the police officers’ fault? Why is it the prosecutors’ fault?”

It’s easy to blame juries. But if they are not presented with the facts, how can they be expected to convict? As one juror wrote in a newspaper article in April, “. . . you have to form a judgment about the entire picture with two thirds of the pieces missing”. Other jurors have spoken publicly of similar problems. Besides, if juries hold prejudices, surely it is the job of the court — the judge in particular — to undermine rather than to encourage these?

The first prejudices rape victims face are not held by jurors but by police, prosecutors and judges, all of whom determine what evidence juries will hear and how that evidence will be presented.

The criminal justice agencies routinely do not collect the evidence, do not present the case accurately or forcefully in court; they do not defend the woman who is their key witness nor give her a chance to tell the jury what she has suffered. When we met the CPS we were told that police often do not collect evidence such as mobile phone records and forensic blood tests because it is “too expensive”. Similarly, research commissioned by the police and the local council in Ipswich following the tragic murders of five young women, confirmed our experience and that of other members of the Safety First Coalition (co-ordinated by the English Collective of Prostitutes) that police do not go after pimps because, again, “it’s too expensive”. It seems to be easier — and better for crime figures — to arrest the women for soliciting or their clients for kerb-crawling, than to go after those who are truly violent.

What is to happen to judges who appear to convey a prejudice or bias because of a woman or girl’s sexual history, job or social standing? You may remember a speaker at our our meeting relating the case of her 15-year-old daughter whose rapist was not convicted: “The judge in my daughter’s case seemed to be there just to assist the defence. Everything we brought up he ruled out or ruled against.” Her formal complaint against that judge is being investigated. But he is very far from an exception.

Although judges have to be “ticketed” (ie, deemed capable) before they can preside over rape cases, your predecessor Mike O’Brien told us that only two tickets had been removed from judges in the past eight years — and for what reason we do not know.

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