Police still dismiss rape victims
We know that currently in nearly three-quarters of all reported rapes, the perpetrator is never charged and the case isn't referred to the CPS. The reasons are numerous and have been debated in various arenas over the past few years. However, in a recent interview, Dave Gee, rape adviser to Acpo and the Home Office, admitted that Britain's appalling conviction rates were often due to poor evidence-gathering and negative mindsets, which he said too often led to cases being "undermined rather than built up".
Police forces across the UK and Wales have all been allocated "rape champions" to oversee the roll-out of their sexual violence action plans, to implement good practice guidelines and to tackle the "negative mindsets" within their forces. Along with specially trained officers, they have received sexual violence training and are part of the initiative that we have been assured will help to address the culture of disbelief that we know, from what women tell us, still exists. However, at the Home Office violence against women consultation in the east of England in May, a rape champion for one of the police forces in the east of England stated openly that "everyone knows most women and girls who report rape can't be believed".
It is truly concerning that rape champions, who oversee the training and work of the specially trained sexual offences officers in police forces, hold these views. It has long been acknowledged by Acpo that miscounting rape statistics – most specifically recording women's withdrawal from the process as a false allegation – has not helped to change the police's wrong assumptions that at least 25% of women reporting rape won't be telling the truth, when in reality that figure is no more than for any other crime.
