Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in each of the past five years in England and Wales, how many prosecutions were brought for rape and serious sexual assault; how many allegations of rape or serious sexual assault reported to police have not been taken to prosecution; and what percentage of prosecutions have resulted in conviction.

This government is committed to increasing the volumes of rape and serious sexual offence cases that reach court.

In 2019, we commissioned our end-to-end Rape Review to better understand the justice system’s response to adult rape. Published in 2021, our watershed report set stretching ambitions to return the volumes of adult rape cases being referred by the police, charged by the CPS, and reaching court back to 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament. In practice, this meant more than doubling the number of adult rape cases reaching court compared to when the Review was first commissioned, in 2019.

The latest data shows that we have exceeded each of these ambitions ahead of schedule. In July – September 2023, we recorded:

• 1,470 total police referrals, exceeding our 2016 ambition of 766 by 91% and now more than triple (+219%) the 2019 quarterly average.
• 668 CPS charges, exceeding our ambition of 538 by 24% and now more than double (+174%) the 2019 quarterly average.
• 665 Crown Court receipts, exceeding our ambition of 553 by 20% and now more than double (+188%) the 2019 quarterly average.

In addition, the number of people prosecuted for an adult rape offence went up by 54% in the last year (12 months to June), rising from 1,410 to 2,165. This is 32% higher than in 2010 (1,644).

But we are determined to build on these successes, and continue to make excellent progress in delivering our Rape Review Action Plan to support victims throughout the criminal justice system:

• For one, it is right that rapists, and those convicted of the most serious sexual offences, remain in prison for the whole of their custodial term and that they are subject to proper supervision in the community on their release with a suitable license period. We will legislate through our Sentencing Bill to make sure that this happens.
• Through Operation Soteria, we are ensuring that every police force and CPS area embeds new, transformative National Operating Models that will radically improve the way the police investigate and the CPS prosecute adult rape. The five forces who first adopted Soteria have all seen charges increase.
• Having recruited 20,000 extra police officers, bringing the total number to a record peak, by April 2024 2,000 officers will receive specialist training on rape and sexual offences, making sure the police have the skills and capability to investigate these crimes.
• We continue to offer our 24/7 support line for victims of rape and sexual violence, ensuring victims of these abhorrent crimes always have someone on hand to support them.
• We are quadrupling victims funding by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10, which will enable us to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse Advisors by 300 to over 1,000 – a 43% increase by 2024/5.

As far as possible, we have provided the requested data in Tables 1-3. Please note that each table contains data extracted from different administrative systems, and for different operational purposes. Whilst every effort has been made to answer the question and keep the data similar it is important to note that the data presented is complementary, rather than directly comparable. Below is a summary of each table and its contents, including a final Annex table (Table A1) which specifies how offences for rape and serious sexual assault have been captured.

Table 1 – Volume of defendants proceeded against for rape or ‘serious’ sexual assault offences, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publish the data set out in Table 1 in Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: June 2023, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (last updated 18 January 2024).

The MoJ tool contains data on the volume of convictions, but it is advised these are not used to calculate conviction rate (the number of convictions as a proportion of the number of prosecutions). This is due to the Court Proceedings Database counting two separate records at two separate stages (one for prosecution, one for conviction). An individual may appear at each court in separate years, or for a different principal offence at different stages. As a result, this rate is not an accurate measure of the proportion of prosecutions that result in a conviction and we recommend table 3 for that purpose.

Table 2 – Rape and ‘serious’ sexual offences (RASSO) recorded by the police that were not assigned a charge outcome, as a proportion of all RASSO cases closed each year, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Home Office (HO) publish the data set out in Table 2 in the quarterly publication Open Data Tables, in the Outcomes Open Data files (last updated on 25 January 2024). It is important to note that the Home Office do not hold data on prosecutions, but publish data on recorded cases that do not receive a charge outcome, presented in Table 2.

Table 2b – Number of reported incidents of rape (excluding offences recorded by the police) and cancelled rape offences, year ending March 2019 to year ending March 2023, England and Wales

Since April 2015, the police have been expected to record all allegations of rape that are reported to them as soon as they are received, unless they are immediately recorded as a confirmed crime. These are recorded under the reported incidents classification. Reported incidents of rape are then either confirmed as a crime and re-classified accordingly (as recorded offences) or are retained in the police data as an incident. Table 2b shows a total of reported incidents that do not go on to be recorded as a crime, and cancelled rape offences. An incident does not go on to be recorded as a crime if the victim or third party reporting the incident cannot confirm it or cannot be traced, if credible evidence to the contrary exists, or if it is transferred to another police force. These data are published here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/652eaab16b6fbf000db75843/prc-rape-incidents-2016-2023.ods). Rape allegations are ‘cancelled’ when there is additional information to confirm the offence did not take place or where the entry is made in error (such as a duplicate of an existing allegation). Home Office can be contacted directly for further comment on these data.

Table 3 – Conviction rate for suspects with a rape flagged offence, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) publish the data set out in Table 3 in CPS quarterly data summaries (last updated on 18 January 2024). Prosecution crime type data tables were used to extract conviction rates for rape flagged cases. Due to the nature of CPS systems, the conviction rate based on rape flags will include cases where the eventual outcome is different to the flagged offence of rape.

Table A1: Definition of rape and 'serious' sexual assault by organisation (MoJ, Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service)

This table sets out how rape and ‘serious’ sexual assault offences have been selected for each of the tables. The most substantial difference is between CPS and MoJ/Home Office data, as the CPS rely on the use of flags and do not record offences by detailed offence code in the same way as the MoJ/Home Office (meaning detailed offences would need to be extracted manually, and are not published). Home Office and MoJ offences broadly correspond but, due to differences in recording practices and operational uses some of the offences follow different description conventions.