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<p>Taking rape and sexual violence is a key priority for this Government.</p><p>Through
the Rape Review, we took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice
system deals with rape and in too many instances it simply has not been good enough.
Our accompanying Action Plan set out a robust programme of work to drive the necessary
improvements in the criminal justice system’s handling of adult rape cases.</p><p>Our
action includes investing £6.65 million in Operation Soteria (2021-23) which will
inform the development of a national operating model for the investigation of rape
by the police which will be available to all forces in June 2023. This includes work
to raise the quality of police case files. For example, enhanced scrutiny panels with
representatives from both the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have been
in established in Operation Soteria areas to scrutinise casework and check whether
quality decisions on individual cases are being made. The CPS will over the next 6
months be developing a file quality metric which will measure the quality of file
cases and will provide insight on where issues need to be addressed.</p><p>The most
recent figures show that police recorded offences of rape increased by 21% across
the whole year ending December 2021 and now stands as the highest ever recorded annual
figure to date (67,125 offences). We welcome the fact that more victims of sexual
offences, which are all too often hidden crimes, are coming forward and reporting
these crimes to the police.</p><p>In addition, we have started to see some increases
in the number of referrals of adult rape cases from the police to the CPS (from 2,513
in the year to September 2021 to 2,736 in the year to December 2021), and in the number
of charges (from 1,160 in the year to September 2021 to 1,243 in the year to December
2021).</p>
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