Fawcett Society presented Vernon Coaker, the Home Office Minister, with an open letter to the Home Secretary, and unfurled a banner outside the Home Office revealing the rape conviction rate of 5.7%.

The letter called on the Home Secretary to end the postcode lottery faced by victims of sexual violence by investing in a national network of rape crisis centres. It also demanded immediate steps be taken to ensure that every case of rape is properly investigated by the police.

The open letter was signed by over 2,300 people including peers, service providers and leading academics.

Commenting on the campaign, Dr Katherine Rake, Director of the Fawcett Society, said:

"To have a rape conviction rate of just 5.7% is a national scandal. How many more women will have to be denied justice before the government takes action? The depth and breadth of support collected for this letter, from both politicians across the political spectrum, and ordinary women and men, demonstrates a critical mass of feeling that improvements must be made to the treatment victims of rape receive.

"Today, we will be calling on the Home Secretary to put rape at the top of the political agenda. Changes are needed now to ensure that rapists are caught and convicted and to properly fund the services that victims of rape want and need. The lack of effective investigation of rape by police means that valuable opportunities to collect evidence are often lost early on in rape cases, and a quarter of reported rapes are not even registered as crimes.

"Women who have been raped often have no support to turn to in their community, at a time when they may need it most. The Government must follow the example of the Scottish model and ring fence adequate funding for a network of rape crisis services to be established right across the country. The Government's record on rape is shameful, and this issue must now be given the priority that it deserves."

Crisis in services for rape victims

Three out of four local authority areas have no services for victims of rape. Even where there are rape crisis centres, the average waiting list is three months long, and it is estimated that up to half of rape crisis centres are at risk of closing due to a lack of funding.

There is also no 24-hour rape helpline for women to phone for support or to find out what services there are in their area, even though the Government promised to introduce one 'as quickly as possible' in July 2003.

Criminal justice failure

The criminal justice system is failing victims of rape. Only one out of every twenty (5.7%) rapes reported to the police results in a conviction, with less than one in five rapes even leading to a prosecution and only 12% making it as far as court.

Update: Fawcett are hoping to meet with Jacqui Smith on 15th April 2008 to discuss our campaign.

(see report on Fawcett's letter in the New Statesman at http://www.newstatesman.com/200803270060 as part of their campaign to secure proper funding for Rape Crisis - and if you haven’t already you can sign their petition to the Prime Minister about this at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RapeCrisis/)

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