The Government has today (3 December) announced a series of reforms to allow rape victims a fairer hearing at trial. These are changes called for by Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) since our 2023 submission to the Law Commission. If enacted properly, the measures announced today will:
Make it harder for victims of rape to be unfairly cross-examined about earlier disclosures of sexual abuse;
Confirm that previous convictions for domestic abuse can and should be used as ‘bad character’ of the accused to support convictions in domestic abuse related rape trials; and
Prevent victims being accused in court of making rape allegations motivated by money, simply because they have made a legitimate application for Criminal Injuries Compensation.
The detail of the proposals remain to be seen, but we are very pleased to see the Government’s intention to improve victims’ experience of rape trials, which are often traumatic and unjust.
Juries today are often presented with a skewed narrative that the victim is a liar where she may have been a victim of a sexual offence from a different perpetrator that was not prosecuted, or that she is out for money because she has applied to the Government’s scheme for compensation for victims of violent crime. These proposals will help prevent defence lawyers from using underhand tactics to try to discredit an honest victim.
Additionally, the common-sense proposal to confirm that previous domestic abuse convictions can be used to support allegations of domestic abuse-related rape should help ensure more serial abusers are convicted. A narrow understanding of the rules of this kind of evidence has led to prosecutors failing to make the link between domestic abuse and sexual offending in abusive relationships, allowing more abusers walk free.
If enacted properly, these proposals will help to restore faith in the justice system by remedying some of the worst injustices rape victims face when giving evidence in trials today.
Nogah Ofer, Solicitor at Centre for Women’s Justice, says:
“We now know that many women experience sexual violence more than once in their life, and some vulnerable women suffer repeat victimisation. It is completely unacceptable for the legal system to treat such women as liars who make false allegations. We have seen the law being applied improperly at every stage: trawling through counselling records, cases being dropped and some women cross-examined in court on irrelevant prior experiences. We welcome a strengthening of the law to provide protection from this.”
Harriet Bland, Solicitor at Centre for Women’s Justice, says:
“We hear every day from the women we support that sexual violence and domestic abuse go hand in hand. If someone has been convicted of physically assaulting their partner in the past, that is plainly relevant to an allegation that they have raped their partner. We are pleased to see the Government responding to our calls for a common-sense update to the law to confirm this. It’s critical too that we end the cruel defence tactic of using legitimate applications for criminal injuries compensation to undermine victims: rape trials are often harrowing and traumatic for victims - they are not entered into lightly.”
ENDS