Everyone in this audience will already know that rape and domestic violence are still the least reported and prosecuted of all violent crimes:

We don’t know how many rapes go unreported today, but in 1985 our London survey found that 1 in 6 women was raped, yet only 1 in 12 victims reported this.

While 1 in 4 women is a victim of domestic violence and almost half also involve rape, most incidents are unreported.

Of reported rapes, the police still no-crime between a quarter and a third.

Only one-tenth of recorded rapes result in conviction – after trials women describe as a second rape, in which the CPS lawyer often sounds more like the defence and judges allow questioning about the woman’s previous sexual history to dominate.

As a result of this process, only about 1 in 200 rapes ends in conviction. So many men are allowed to get away with rape that those who are convicted feel unlucky rather than guilty. We know that some police officers, women and some men, are frustrated just like us about the way the police deal with rape and want to change this. We want to work with them.

The police PR claims that rape is a priority, but the reality for many victims tells a different story. There are a number of key police policies and procedures which must be improved, and they are all underpinned by institutional sexism. We have not yet got an answer to one fundamental question: What proportion of police resources goes into rape compared to crimes against property?

Having worked with victims at all stages of the criminal justice process for 25 years we want to convey the problems they experience today.

We’re told that SOIT was introduced in response to public pressure to improve the way evidence is gathered and to address the appalling rate of convictions for rape. When we went with a woman to a Stratford police station, the WPC in the SOIT Team was sympathetic, friendly but formal, never accused the woman of lying, and acknowledged to her how traumatic it was for her to report. We don’t know if this was long experience or recent SOIT training. However, there are still major problems with interviewing.

The first priority is accuracy – the statement should be in the woman’s own words. It is not acceptable for police to take notes and the police officer later constructs a woman’s statement in his or her words. The resulting pervasive inaccuracy is deadly in court: the woman cannot, and must not, be expected to defend someone else’s words.

The victim should be told how crucial the statement is for the trial. When she is not exhausted from the interview she should be asked to check it carefully; the police should positively encourage changes and corrections before she signs it.

She should be given a copy of her own statement at that point, not the day of the trial when she is likely to be too nervous to concentrate.

But getting her story down accurately should not be a pretext to torture the witness by making her repeat the details of an awful experience. The interview should be as quick and painless as possible; we were horrified to learn that SOIT officers are questioning women for many days, to "recall" the rape over and over before even beginning a statement. Of course a clear account is needed but such a rigid application of this interviewing technique will instead inevitably put women off pursuing their case. It is outrageously traumatic. Moreover, we cannot understand why the statement is not typed straight into a word processor, to speed it up and make it easy to correct.

Questioning should focus on the crime and not on the victim’s sexual history or lifestyle, other relationships, medical history or other aspects of her past or private life – which is now largely banned by the Youth Justice & Criminal Evidence Act.

We have sometimes been shocked by the careless way witness evidence is recorded; and by police decisions not to interview witnesses who can verify some crucial aspects of the victim’s story even if they were not an eye-witness to the rape itself.

One woman’s eye-witness to a rape was so shocked by what she saw that she told police she "couldn’t believe it". She had run to alert others in the house. The police recorded her statement as, she didn’t believe it was rape. The prosecution was dropped when the rape was treated as consenting sex. When the victim pushed for it to be reopened some months later after she got help, the police had to re-interview this eye-witness, undermining her credibility, and even blaming her for the inaccuracies, claiming she’d withheld information.

Delay in reporting should not be used as an excuse to refuse to investigate or prosecute – victims find reporting extremely traumatic and justifiably fear repeat attacks or other retaliation. Reporting rape is a public service which should be rewarded by willing and respectful treatment; women should be encouraged to come forward to provide this service at any point.

No-criming rape and domestic violence should be stopped. The only effect is to keep the number of reported rapes and proportion of unsolved crimes down. Recent Home Office research said although no-criming fell since 1985 from 45 % to 25 %, this is offset by cases being discontinued by the police in greater numbers ("No Further Action"). Some women drop out for their own reasons (including financial dependence), but there is abundant evidence of police officers discouraging the victim.

Rape trials have been widely exposed (including by us) as putting the woman on trial, and to add insult to injury police sometimes use this to press her to withdraw her allegation by asking over and over: Are you sure you want to go to court? It’s really awful and the man is very unlikely to be convicted. There is a problem with you as a witness. There is not enough evidence.

What we do is lay out the options to the women, say what they are up against, and what they can gain, and offer our support and help. Rape survivors have a right to the trial, for the jury to hear their case, for the community to be given a chance to stand with them against the man who attacked their social, moral and physical integrity. Official recognition and social acknowledgement of the crime are a key step in the process to recovery, and we tell women that. It is not the job of the police to discourage women from going to court.

A police chaperone now keeps the victim informed of her case and the attacker’s movements – women have been put in danger when not informed. But chaperones cannot compensate for dropped prosecutions nor carelessly gathered evidence. They can also be over-familiar, "befriending" the victim, including paying her uninvited home visits, which they have no right to do and which many women greatly object to but may feel too vulnerable to refuse. The relationship must be professional and formal. Some chaperones gather information about other criminal activity such as drugs or stolen property. But prosecuting a rapist for drug possession is no substitute for pursuing the rape. Why are drug or property crimes being prioritised over the violent crime of rape?

One third of all reported crimes against women result from domestic violence and almost half of homicides of women are killings by a partner or ex-partner. Victims of domestic rape and child abuse are particularly vulnerable to further attacks. But the arrest rate is low; studies show that between 10 and 25 per cent of domestic violence call-outs result in arrest, and this is still not nationally monitored. Police are especially reluctant to pursue a man who has left the scene, even when the man has broken bail or injunction conditions. Somehow, we are told, there are not enough police resources for the crime of domestic violence.

If police repeatedly take no action, it is a green light to attack repeatedly. Many women face threats to kill and too many threats are allowed to be carried out.

All women are entitled to the same (high) standard of respect and resources. Widespread and well-documented racism discourages Black and immigrant women from reporting. Black women may face all the above and police racism in addition. Some police officers seem to make an assessment of what you deserve based on what they presume is your social power, including race, nationality, age, relationship to attacker, class, disability, criminal record. How can women report rape to the same police who have treated them or other members of their family in a racist way, including falsely arresting them, stopping and searching them, not pursuing crimes against them?

Prostitute women have been told that rape is part of the job and have been turned away when they reported rape or other violent clients.

The recent raids on Soho flats and the threatened deportations of 32 immigrant sex workers with the excuse of liberating them from their traffickers will do nothing to increase women’s confidence in police protection.

Officers who are shown to be sexist, racist or discriminatory against any section of people should be disciplined, and in some cases dismissed. Mishandling of a rape case, even when shown to be the result of sexism, racism, etc., has never to our knowledge been the occasion for dismissal.

We cannot understand why rape survivors are not routinely informed about their right to claim criminal injuries compensation.

After a series of cases where policemen themselves have been proven to have raped women prisoners, women police officers, and women civilians, many women are asking how they can have confidence reporting rape to the police.

It is not just a case of bad apples. Some rapist officers have even been promoted, like PC Banfield, convicted of raping women prisoners in Cambridge police cells. He was only prosecuted after several complainants had been ignored. How can officers take rape reports properly when their own colleagues are not punished for the same crime – treated as above the law?

On the other hand, some officers have increasingly refused to cover up rape, some challenge priorities and pursue rapists even among their own ranks. Unfortunately the women police who are fighting against their own rape by fellow officers rarely acknowledge what is happening to women outside the police force at the hands of these same men.

We have been part of a London-wide Police Consultative Group on sexual offences which met for over a year where we raised much of what we are saying today. Local forces are constantly consulting the public about crime, and meet regularly with the voluntary sector in domestic violence forums. Yet the horror stories of women reporting rape continue. If any of them are serious about change, they must address the issues we’ve laid out above. Neither PR, nor funding to the voluntary sector, should stifle criticism or divert attention away from the urgent changes the police must make. The police can begin by taking the lead of those police officers, mainly women, who have been working for change. If WAR was able to get rape in marriage acknowledged in law as the crime it is, women must be able to bring changes not only to the law but to the practice of the law beginning with the practices and priorities of the police. Women will not settle for less.