Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of cases of suspected rape were given a No Further Action as a result of insufficient evidence to proceed in each of the last three years.

Rape and serious sexual offences are devastating crimes that have a profound impact on victims, and are some of the most challenging and complex cases that the CPS deals with. Where evidence submitted by the Police is sufficient to bring charges, the CPS will not hesitate to prosecute these horrific crimes.

The CPS maintains a central record to show the overall number of charging decisions where a decision has been made to take No Further Action in cases recorded as rape on the system. The data is shown below broken down by financial year:

• In 2015-16, 31.5% of cases of suspected rape were not prosecuted due to evidential issues (2,162 cases)

• In 2016-17, 31.2% of cases of suspected rape were not prosecuted due to evidential issues (2,061 cases)

• In 2017-18, 29.7% of cases of suspected rape were not prosecuted due to evidential issues (1,786 cases)