Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what estimate he has made of the proportion of cases of domestic and sexual violence that were prosecuted in each of the last five years; and what steps he is taking to increase the prosecution rate for such crimes.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has no data on the total number of incidents of domestic violence and sexual violence that have occurred in each of the last five years and is unable, therefore, to provide an answer to the first part of the question.
Increasing the number of rape convictions continues to be a priority for the CPS. On 6 June 2014, a Rape Action Plan was jointly published by the police and CPS which sets out a series of actions designed to improve the criminal justice response in rape cases. This followed a Rape National Scrutiny Panel led by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the National Policing lead for rape, which considered the investigation and prosecution of rape cases including their referral from the police to the CPS. The prosecution of domestic violence also remains a high priority for the CPS and prosecutors receive regular training, and are provided with relevant guidance. The Rape Action Plan can be found on the CPS website at;
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/rape_action_plan.pdf