Specialist courts to handle cases of rape and other sexual offences will be introduced across England and Wales over the next two years, the prime minister has announced. Each crown court will have at least one courtroom set up to hear such cases, while alleged victims will be able to view proceedings remotely and give evidence from a separate room via video link. They will also be provided with private entrances and waiting rooms to separate them from defendants, though it is understood this will be dependent on the architecture of each building. Rape Crisis England and Wales said this was a “significant step forward” that would introduce several reforms it had been requesting for years.
“Taken together, they reflect the urgency of ensuring that courts are fit for purpose and properly meet the needs of victims and survivors, which is crucial to securing justice,” the charity’s chief executive, Ciara Bergman, said. Charities have complained that low prosecution rates for sexual offences and delays to court proceedings had disuaded victims from coming forward or pursuing justice. Just 2.8% of rape offences recorded by police led to prosecutions in the year ending March 2024 and were the crimes that took the longest to investigate. A prior ONS study suggested that only a sixth of the actual number of rape and attempted rape victims had reported their assault to the police, with more than a third saying this was because they felt the police could not help or that the process would be humiliating.
Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones said the new measures were part of efforts to “get to grips” with a backlog of Crown Court cases, which stood at 80,098 at the end of March. RapeCrisis England and Wales said 15,373 of these cases – 19% – related to sexual offences. Davies-Jones told BBC Breakfast that the introduction of specialist courtrooms “isn’t enough on its own” to tackle the backlog and stressed the importance of the Courts and Tribunals Bill to improve “timeliness, effectiveness and also prevention”. The Conservatives say the “long overdue” move should not come with restricting the number of jury trials, which is another provision of the bill.
Under the new measures, expected to cost around £23m of the Ministry of Justice’s budget, court staff will be given “trauma-informed training” and a single person of contact will be assigned to each survivor. From next month, trials will be given a fixed date rather than placed on floating lists in what Prime Minister Andy Burnham said was an effort to “rebalance the scales of justice and put victims first”. The government said the changes follow Labour MP Charlotte Nichols showing “immense strength and bravery” in speaking publicly about being raped and calling for changes to the justice system. Nichols waived her automatic right to anonymity in March when she made a Commons speech in which she described having to wait more than 1,000 days to go to court.
MP reveals rape ordeal during court reform debate Delays to my rapist’s trial left me terrified, survivor tells BBC Rape victims to get specialised legal advice in courts Earlier this year, the government announced that rape victims would be given access to specialist legal advice throughout the criminal justice process. Labour promised in its 2024 manifesto to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. “For too long, victims of rape and serious sexual offences have felt let down by our justice system,” Burnham said. “Prosecution rates for rape remain shamefully low, with many victims waiting years for justice.
This is not good enough.” He added that the changes were “long overdue” and would make a “significant difference”, but that efforts to prevent these “horrific crimes” needed to be stepped up. Nichols accused the then-Justice Secretary David Lammy of using victims as a “cudgel” to push through his reforms of the legal system when she spoke publicly for the first time about being raped. She was criticising the Courts and Tribunals Bill’s plans to limit jury trials to cases with a likely prison sentence of three years or more. Nichols said she had waited 1,088 days to go to court, with every day being “agony”.
Her attacker, she said, was acquitted at crown court but subsequently ordered to pay compensation after she won a civil case against him. “It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely,” she said. The Conservatives said in response to news of the specialist courts roll-out that tackling delays to criminal rape trials was “long overdue”, while pushing Labour to commit to scrapping plans to restrict jury trials. “The fact that victims have been withdrawing their cases because they have taken too long has been a disgrace,” said shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy.
“Labour need to get courts sitting throughout the year, end the delays and clear the backlog – not undermine our right to a trial by jury.” Last year, the Salford Survivor Project charity said victims of rape and sexual assault were being “failed by the system” as court backlogs reached a record high. The long delays for cases to go to trial were having a serious impact on victims’ mental health, it said. A few months later, a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a taxi driver on her 21st birthday told BBC News she had dropped the case because of court delays. She reported the alleged incident in early 2022 and gave evidence in court in December 2023, but the case was adjourned until September 2024 when the judge fell ill.
“I couldn’t let this hurt me further,” she said. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, information and support can be found at the BBC’s Action Line website. Get our flagship Have you been affected by the issues discussed in this story? If you feel comfortable doing so, get in touch.
