End-to-end Rape Review

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend has very graphically illustrated some of the appalling experiences that many complainants and victims have undergone, and that is very much at the core of this review. We need to move away from the fixation with the credibility or believing of the victim and be much more about the perpetrator. If someone’s house is burgled, they do not expect to have a long trawl into their personal history and whether they had left an upstairs window unlocked or whether they had been drinking; it is about trying to find out who did it and who is responsible for the crime. It is that sort of approach that we need in rape and serious sexual offending.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The prevalence of rape myths and the lack of understanding of consent are known to act as barriers to justice for rape victims, and the Lord Chancellor rightly mentions the need for culture change. Will he therefore commit to bringing forward a strategy to provide training for the investigation of rape and alleged rape complaints, not only for the judiciary but for all jury members hearing such prosecutions?