You need to support, not undermine, the work of bringing rapists to justice and helping their victims
Dear Ken,
Your face was a picture of bewilderment as you were chased by TV crews demanding apologies for your comments on rape. You clearly had no idea that you had touched a very raw nerve. Let me try and explain, and tell you what you can do to put it right.
For years women who were raped did not get justice. Their sex life was paraded in court so they felt it was they, not their attackers, who were in the dock. They were accused of meaning "yes" although they had said "no". They were told that their short skirts meant that they were "asking for it". Their attackers would tell the court that women wanted sex in a park with two men they had never met. If women were attacked by their husbands – even if they were separated and their husbands had used violence – it was not even an offence. If the victim was a prostitute the police and prosecution wouldn't take it to court – believing that a jury would never convict.
And so women who were raped felt terribly alone. The failure by the criminal justice system added to their victimisation, and sometimes reinforced in their minds the idea that it was really they who were to blame for the attacks. So, over many years, we fought for change. (You are old enough to remember all this, Ken!)
We argued that rape victims should be treated in a respectful and caring way by the police, prosecutors and courts. We changed the system from beginning to end. The Sexual Offences Act toughened the law on "consent". Victims could go to one of the new sexual assault referral centres where their cuts and bruises would be tended and they'd be given emergency contraception and HIV tests at the same time as the forensic evidence was meticulously gathered. Police practice was transformed – most notably by Project Sapphire in the Met. In the CPS, a new team of specialist rape prosecutors was formed. Her Majesty's Inspectorates scrutinised all regions to try and spread the good practice. Judicial training was overhauled and the sentencing advisory panel issued guidance that rape was a serious violent crime deserving prison. And, when I was solicitor general, I referred unduly lenient rape sentences to the court of appeal. And they increased them.
And all that is starting to make the system change. Though it is still a terrible ordeal for a rape victim to report to the police and give evidence in court, and though too many rapists still evade justice, more women have the confidence to report rape and more rapists are being prosecuted and convicted. The number of men convicted for rape has increased by 54%.
Your job is to lead the criminal justice system and to continue the improvement in bringing rapists to justice. But one of the very first things your government did was to propose anonymity for rape defendants. This sent out the signal that they need greater protection than other defendants because their accuser is more likely to be lying. There was an outcry and the plan was dropped. But you clearly learnt nothing because your comments last week were an echo from the bad old days.
Earlier this year I attended a rape case in Southwark crown court. Two men were accused of raping a young Lithuanian prostitute. The Met's Project Sapphire had worked with the UK Border Agency to arrest the men. The court heard incontrovertible forensic evidence from a sexual assault referral centre. The victim gave her evidence screened from the eyes of her attackers; the police evidence from the Operation Sapphire officer was unchallengeable and the prosecutor was utterly professional. After a unanimous guilty verdict, the judge passed an indeterminate sentence for "public protection". The defendants looked shocked. Clearly they thought that the rape of a prostitute was in one of the "categories" that don't matter.
Twenty years ago that case would never even have got to court. You should support, not undermine, the extraordinary and dedicated work of bringing rapists to justice. You should be protecting rape crisis centres, supporting sexual assault referral centres, praising the pioneering work of the crown prosecutors and protecting the police from cuts that will hit their painstaking work on rape.
You believe that people who get it wrong can turn over a new leaf. That is what you need to do.
Yours sincerely,
Harriet Harman MP
Labour's Deputy Leader