The government has today (7 May 2025) introduced a new Victims and Courts Bill aiming to better protect victims and improve access to justice.
Some of the measures announced today reflect the tireless campaigning of victims and their families; many of whom have endured deeply traumatic experiences within the criminal justice system and family courts.
These new measures include:
Automatic restriction of parental responsibility for perpetrators of child sexual offences against their own child
New powers for the Victims’ Commissioner to hold government to account, empowering them to play a greater role in individual cases which raise systemic issues to ensure that lessons are learned
Powers for judges to impose sanctions on perpetrators who don’t attend sentencing
Updating the Victim Contact Scheme and establishing a new Victim Helpline so victims have a clear route to request information about an offender’s release.
Responding to the announcement, leading VAWG organisations Centre for Women’s Justice, End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan, Rape Crisis England & Wales and Rights of Women call on the government to use the Bill to put an end to harmful and re-traumatising legal practices that wrongly seek to discredit rape survivors’ experiences.
So-called ‘bad character’ evidence
When a victim-survivor of rape reports the offence to the police, any previous disclosures of rape and sexual violence they have made can be used against them as evidence of their ‘bad character’, even when these previous experiences are completely unconnected to the case.
This means that if a woman has ever been raped or sexually assaulted before in her life, by a completely different perpetrator, it can be used against her in order to undermine her account of the offence she is reporting.
In a significant number of cases, judges are allowing the defence to cross-examine victim-survivors about previous unrelated experiences of sexual violence in front of the jury, on the wrongful basis that these previous disclosures show that she has a propensity to lie about sexual assault, despite there being no basis whatsoever to believe that the previous disclosure might be a false report.
This harrowing and re-traumatising experience is often sprung on the victim-survivor after the trial has already started, sometimes without any prior warning, when she is already in the witness box. This is a defence strategy to present the jury with an unfair or twisted narrative that the survivor is untruthful, when there is actually no evidence of this.
The Centre for Women’s Justice, End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan, Rape Crisis England & Wales and Rights of Women are calling for the Victims and Courts Bill to provide judges with clearer guidelines on when a previous disclosure is admissible in the current case. This means amending section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to state that there must be a proper evidential basis to assert that the previous disclosure was false.
Guidance should also clarify that the following facts relating to previous unrelated disclosures of sexual violence do not of themselves provide this evidential basis:
That the victim/survivor did not report the incident to the police
That the victim/survivor did not support a prosecution following a report
That the police or CPS closed the case without charge
That the case was prosecuted and the accused acquitted (in this situation the jury could have concluded that he was probably guilty, but they could not be sure, so the criminal standard was not reached).
We propose that legislation should set out clearly the degree of evidence that is required for it to meet the high threshold of “substantive probative value” which section 100 requires for evidence to be admitted as ‘bad character’ evidence.
Nogah Ofer, Solicitor at Centre for Women’s Justice, said:
“It is deeply unfair for rape survivors to be accused of lying, simply because they have come forward to disclose other sexual offending in the past. We need to tighten up the law to ensure that our criminal justice system reflects the protections that the Court of Appeal has laid down.”
Rebecca Hitchen, Head of Policy & Campaigns at the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:
“The criminal justice system can often be a site of harm for survivors, rather than a route to justice. This must change. One clear way the government can address this is by strengthening the Victims and Courts Bill to restrict the use of a survivor’s previous experiences of sexual violence as part of a defence strategy. The reality is that many women experience multiple incidents of sexual violence over their lifetime—this should not used against them. This traumatic and profoundly distressing practice undermines their ability to give evidence. It must be stopped.”
Sumanta Roy, Head of Research, Evaluation and Development at Imkaan said:
“We know that Black and minoritised victim-survivors of rape and sexual violence are less likely to be believed and are treated more harshly by the police, courts and juries because of the enduring impact of systemic racism and misogyny. It's critical that we strengthen the legal system to ensure that previous disclosures of sexual violence are not used by the courts to unfairly undermine the credibility of survivors, re-traumatise and deny their access to justice.”
Maxime Rowson, Policy Lead at Rape Crisis England & Wales, said:
“1 in 2 adult survivors of rape have experienced sexual violence more than once. Some choose to disclose the abuse to employers, support services or medical professionals only, who make a record of this disclosure which is never reported to the police. Others do go to the police, but fewer than 6% of reported rapes lead to prosecution due to there being insufficient evidence available.
“What’s deeply troubling is that when survivors report further abuse, their past experiences of sexual violence can be used against them—suggesting they are now lying. That is simply unacceptable.
“The criminal justice system should protect survivors, not cause more harm. Yet, time and again, survivors tell us that going through the system feels re-traumatising. The Victims and Prisoners Bill is a crucial chance to change that—by stopping the use of so-called 'bad character' evidence that unfairly discredits survivors in court.”
Hannah Couchman, Senior Legal Officer at Rights of Women, said:
“Every day, survivors reach out to Rights of Women for support as they navigate a complex justice system that was not designed to meet their needs and so often leaves them re-traumatised. We welcome the opportunity this Bill presents to centre those needs, protect their rights and increase accountability. This Bill must form part of a wider and systemic effort to address problematic attitudes towards sexual violence, particularly in relation to previous reports, and to address VAWG at its route in social injustice and inequality.”
ENDS
Notes:
More information, including case studies, can be found in our joint briefing here.