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Is the Met failing women
over rape and domestic violence?
Convictions for rape remain low despite police policy to tackle the crime as a priority. On the eve of a national conference on rape and domestic violence, Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is asked in an open letter what can be done to put rape prosecutions at the top of the agenda
There is great public concern that the conviction rate in rape cases is low and dropping: fewer than one tenth of recorded rapes result in conviction. The Metropolitan Police have stated publicly that rape is a priority and that key changes are being made in their response to rape and domestic violence. Yet the discrepancy between the Mets stated intentions and their practices is stark. Women continue to come to us for help claiming the police have refused to protect them from violent partners, ignored evidence of the rape, refused to investigate it thoroughly or discouraged them from pursuing a prosecution. When women complain they say they face hostility and even scorn.
Other key concerns include the dismissal or careless recording of crucial evidence. Instead of taking down an account in the victims words and then checking with her for accuracy, officers take notes by hand, sometimes over days, which are later compiled into a written statement (police letter to us), an agonisingly slow process which results in misrepresentation and inaccuracy. Often included in police evidence are irrelevancies such as the victims sexual history or lifestyle, other relationships and medical history.A witness who told police she couldnt believe what she had seen was recorded as having said that she didnt believe it was rape; witnesses to a domestic assault were not pursued yet police then claimed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Recent Home Office research, A Question of Evidence? Investigating and prosecuting rape in the 1990s, found that although no-criming (not recording rape as a crime) nationally has fallen from 45 per cent to 25 per cent since 1985, this is offset by police discontinuing more cases. Our experience is that some officers discourage women by telling them they do not stand a chance of getting a conviction and graphically describing how courts would put them on trial. They even press women to say they have lied. This same research reports: The four complainants who were interviewed felt that the police had actively encouraged them to withdraw their allegations. One woman was told her bruises were not good enough and another that sometimes women allege rape when it is not in fact true.
Rapists thus go unpunished and statistics are distorted, hiding how low the conviction rate really is. Bear in mind how vulnerable a woman who has been raped feels when she reports this to a stranger in authority, and how crushed she can feel if instead of eagerness to establish the truth, she encounters suspicion. One third of all reported crimes against women, including murders, result from domestic violence. Yet only 10 to 25 per cent of domestic violence callouts result in arrest.
Being black, immigrant, working-class, a single mother, a child, older, lesbian, having a disability, having been married to or being the ex-partner of the attacker, having a criminal record . . . easily become reasons to disbelieve or not regard as a priority the violence reported, especially when the accused has a higher social position than his victim.
There have been cases where policemen have been found guilty of raping women prisoners, WPCs or civilians, often over several years. We all know of cases where WPCs were punished for complaining about assaults by colleagues. Some rapist officers have even been promoted. How can we expect officers to handle rape properly when their own colleagues are not punished for the same crime? One of the first steps in proving to women that there is a change of priorities is consistent appropriate punishment for police offenders.
In February we raised some of these points at a police conference. The response was mixed. Some were angered. Afterwards several women officers said that what we had described was true but they were not optimistic about the will to change.
In June we wrote to the Mets Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Offences, which urged us to take part in shaping the way we operate. We said that we would no longer attend any consultative initiative until they acknowledged our criticisms. They replied: Many of your comments dealt with the negative extremes of our work, ignoring the dedication, commitment and professionalism displayed daily across London . . . your presentation reveals many negative stereotypes about us, some of which are very serious, but we are an extremely important factor in the lives of those you represent.
How can the police claim a change of practice while criticisms from rape victims continue to be denied? How can we spend time discussing abstractions and avoiding discussing crucial police practices as these disclose the actual policy and priorities all behind closed doors? Police mishandling of a rape case has never to our knowledge led to the dismissal of any officer. This is particularly damaging to the many WPCs and PCs who have told us how discouraging it is to do their best only to see careless or negligent investigation undermining a prosecution.
What can you do as Commissioner to remedy these urgent problems and make prosecuting sexual violence a priority? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metropolitan Police National Conference on Rape, November 15-16 2001, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square, London ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |