Rape cases: police admit failing victims

[Derek Smith]

This is the heading in today's Guardian newspaper:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/04/ukcrime.law 

and has the sub-heading:

Senior Met officer blames scepticism and inertia for low conviction rate

A number of things irritated me about this article. Firstly, how can a senior ACPO officer, even if he is after promotion, blame anything other than himself for such failures? He's in charge. It's like the captain of the Titanic saying that his lookout was poorly trained.

Another point is that newspapers seem to be Metrocentric. If it happens in the Metropolitan Police District it must happen all over the country. If his offices are as dismal as he suggests, then it his his job to rectify it.

But most importantly, I can't help thinking that this will put off victims from making complaints of rape as they might well feel that all they will meet is scepticism and intertia.

My old, county, force took rapes seriously and had a highly trained, dedicated unit to deal with them. They were on-call for advice at all times of day and night and would be quite critical if they weren't called in the early stages of an enquiry. I believe this to be the norm across the constabularies. One of the positives (there's so few) about working on rape cases is the thanks you get from the victim regardless of the outcome. Irritatingly, most say that they were advised not to proceed by friends and had read that they would not be treated seriously.

So what I'm trying to say is that in my experience (I ran 3 id parades a week for rape victims over two years and once had three in one day) rape is treated with care, consideration and seriousness. The initial examination is very invasive but that is of necessity. It is completed by trained specialist medical staff. Psychiatric advice is at hand. We had specialist victim suites which are designed to put victims at ease - as much as possible - and out of sight of the other officers and staff.

I actually made a complaint about the initial manning levels of a rape incident room and a DCI came back to me with the result of his investigations into it and thanks for taking an interest.

For the victim of a rape, the incident is bad engough but it is true to say that a prolonged enquiry can be devestating for them. My force, and I know of none who do not, did everything it could to alleviate the distress.

Whether a victim of rape proceeds with a complaint is entirely up to them and I would not want to put pressure on anyone to go against what they see as their best interests. But I don't want them to be put off because they think that it will not be dealt with professionally, considerately and with tact. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Jasandjules]

Derek Smith said:

Firstly, how can a senior ACPO officer, even if he is after promotion, blame anything other than himself for such failures? He's in charge. It's like the captain of the Titanic saying that his lookout was poorly trained.

That's the basic problem I have with any senior officer making any such statement. For some reason "The Buck Stops here" doesn't seem to be on their desk. And I hate people like that, always blaming others when they are at fault. Sadly, it seems typical of those in higher authorities these days.

[SplatSpeed]

the basic problem is it is one word against another

hard to prove ??

[staceyb]

If it wasn't for so many girls crying wolf over rape I think it would be taken a lot more seriously.

[Mg6b]

Stranger rapes are relatively rare. They obviously do get reported and sometimes after many days or weeks go past prior to the victim gathering the strength to report the crime. That makes gathering important evidence much more difficult as you can imagine. Not just the forensic side either.

Many commonly reported rapes are those where the victim knows his/her attacker. As you can imagine, police have to tread a very difficult path in investigating these offences because normally, there are only two people present when the alleged attack occurs. Some people are vindictive about various relationship issues! I don't suppose it would surprise anyone that in those cases, consent is nearly always the issue. There is rarely a dispute about whether sexual contact actually occurred.

Despite what the article says, most forces have a comprehensive structure for support and investigation where victims alleging rape are concerned. Dealing with any investigation not just rape requires an impartial view by those collecting the evidence. Sometimes, being impartial and thorough reveals that the allegation is false. When this occurs, the victim has to be challenged about the evidence.

Often, even with support through the police and other organisations, victims refuse to go further than the initial complaint because of embarrassment or many other reasons personal to them about having to stand up in a court and give evidence, even though there are special measures available for them to give evidence so that they are not identified or even in the same room as the offender.

My force has specially trained officers (STO's) who are attached to CID specifically to deal with rape allegations and nothing else. They are even called out when they are not on duty to take the reports and deal with the initial evidence gathering before handing the case over to CID officers.
The initial phase of intimate examination and statement taken is done at specially constructed premises away from police stations, normally a house on a housing estate referred to as a 'rape suit' (probably not a good name for a building where someone who is a victim is to be taken to the 'rape suit' where they may fear it will happen again!). These places are designed to make victims feel less stressful about their ordeal and to help them co-operate so best evidence is obtained. Police surgeons are specially trained to examine victims to obtain intimate samples and other evidence that is required from victims.

Sadly, allegations over such emotive and abhorrent offences as rape are rarely straight forward. There are a myriad of reasons why victims refuse to give evidence and they are not usually down to the actions or inactions of the police taking the initial report or investigating the offence to a more in depth level.

[Mg6b]

Mr Yates said:

"We're looking at every possibility to push the boundaries back. However, let's concentrate and get the basics right. Cases are often lost when the first steps are not done properly, when the victim thinks the police didn't believe her or inadequate attention is given to forensics."

And Mr Yates wonders about the facts of rape allegations and inertia, then drops a political clanger like that above! Mr Yates. Men get raped too!

[Derek Smith]

SplatSpeed said:

the basic problem is it is one word against another

hard to prove ??

That is the main problem with the offence. It is not enough for police to prove that sexual intercourse took place but that a/ the victim did not consent and, b/ the offender knew of the lack of consent. But that said, every crime has its specific problems.

I've just thought of another irritation with this acpo chappie. He's quoting figures which he knows are inaccurate.

At one time - I assume this has changed by now. Perhaps someone could say - if a woman complained of rape it was crimed as a rape regardless of whether, in the opinion of the initial investigator, it was an indecent assault or, as has happened, just an assault. The reasoning was complex but I must admit to fully agreeing with it. Indeed, the DCI agreed with it despite the fact that it distorted the figures and he was judged on them.

So what happened was that the offence went down as rape. If it was found to be indecent assault then if we had an offender and charged indecent assault, the crime went down as no proscution for rape. This happened quite often as rape is quite a technical offence and it is unreasonable to expect someone who has just been raped/indecently assaulted/assaulted to know the niceties. No one expected that where a compainant phoned in and said she'd been robbed, it would stay as a robbery despite the fact that it was, quite clearly, a theft.

I had a very keen controller who headed a serial, Allegation of rape. His supervisor altered it but it came through to me as his inspector as it was 'inappropriate language'. I asked him why and he said that it was obviously an indecent assault, which was correct, but procedure required that he leave it as rape.

That said, conviction rates for rape are quite low, especially as we often have an identified suspect, but evidence of guilty knowledge on behalf of the offender is often difficult to prove. Many victims do not fight: fear, threats, absolute terror, being overpowerd, whatever. Whilst this is, according to many rape lobbyists, the safest option, it does make the police's job very difficult if there are no independant witnesses and no injuries. The intense examination of offenders that you see on TV programmes is not allowed nowadays. It's more like a friendly chat. Very difficult to come to terms with for officers of my vintage where clever little traps were the norm which could snap shut on some overconfident offender. I had a DS who reckoned that for the vast majority of time in an interview, you should only ask questions you already know the answer to. That would be seen as bullying nowadays no doubt. So it is very difficult to prove non-consentual sexual intercourse unless there is ample circumstantial evidence.

There are rape lawyers as there are lawyers for speeding and these can be very difficult to overcome. Whilst the specialist rape units are their equal at least, the first units on scene are often probationers and they will be targeted in any trial. It is so easy to say the wrong thing in court and, if you only have a few months in, it is very easy to do the wrong thing at the scene, especially with identification.

What is out of order is the way victims are treated in court. I was involved in a case where an 18-year-old girl, who was raped, then buggered and then had this bloke's dick stuck down her throat, asked for a screen to be put up between her and the offender. The court argued for 90 minutes over whether this would compromise the fiarness of the trial. This when the victim had been quite severly beaten, had been threatened with death, had collapsed on the id parade and had remained immobile for 7 minutes, and where there was overwhelming DNA evidence. The whole intent of the defence was to get the girl to collapse again. But she was made of sterner stuff.

There was some argument about the fact that the defendant had not been proved guilty but she thought he was the offender and that was, I would assume, overwhelming.

I'd say rant over but in fact it is more temporarily suspended. I'll be back.

Edited by Derek Smith on Tuesday 4th March 11:12

[Don]

Personally I don't care whether or not conviction rates are low or high.

I want conviction rates to be right. Isn't that the rule of law?

[Plotloss]

Don said:

I want conviction rates to be right.

Yep and to add to that I think it would be just to give anonymity to both victim AND the accused until a successful conviction is gained. From that point on add the rapist to any public sex offenders register you like but whilst there remains a chance that vindictivness is coming into play anonymity is the only way.