Julie Hilling
Main Page: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)Department Debates - View all Julie Hilling's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
1. What steps he is taking to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service’s networks of specialist rape and child abuse prosecutors are adequately funded.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure that the CPS’s networks of specialist rape and child abuse prosecutors are adequately funded.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What steps he is taking to ensure that the CPS’s networks of specialist rape and child abuse prosecutors are adequately funded.
The Solicitor-General
That is not correct. All Crown Prosecution Service advocates have been trained in how to deal with domestic violence cases. Some 800 have been fully trained as rape specialists, and they are always involved in any rape case, so it is not right to say that that is not so. A network has been set up, under Mr Nazir Afzal, the chief Crown prosecutor for the north-west, to look at child sexual exploitation and improve prosecution, and it is proving successful.
Julie Hilling
The Director of Public Prosecutions has indicated that the Crown Prosecution Service’s failings in child grooming cases go well beyond Rochdale, and he said that a whole category of crimes has not been well treated by the criminal justice system. Does the Solicitor-General know how many cases the DPP is referring to and whether any of them will now be revisited by the CPS?
The Solicitor-General
Whenever a case is the subject of further evidence or it is suggested that the right prosecution decision has not been made, the CPS takes that very seriously, and, as the hon. Lady will know, it reviews cases as appropriate. It is worth making the point that the CPS is improving its performance in rape and sexual abuse cases. Rape convictions are up by 4% year on year, and that is continuing in the current year, and there is an improvement across the area of sexual violence generally.