England and Wales are to create specialist courts for cases of rape and other serious sexual offences, in a bid to reduce long delays in the justice system and avoid further traumatising victims.
The new measures, announced by Premier Andy Burnham, will see every Crown Court have at least one dedicated courtroom for these cases within two years. Alleged victims will be able to watch proceedings remotely and give evidence from a separate room via video link, without having to physically face the defendants.
In buildings where architectural conditions allow, separate entrances and waiting areas will be created for victims, so that they do not have to face the accused or their families in the court corridors. Court staff will be trained to work with trauma cases, and each victim will have a single contact person during the process.
From next month, trials for rape and serious sexual offences will be given fixed dates, rather than being placed on rolling case lists, where hearings are often postponed at the last minute. The British government says the aim is to “rebalance the scales of justice” and put victims at the centre of the process.
The organization Rape Crisis England and Wales has described the decision as an "important step forward", noting that many of these measures had been requested for years by groups supporting victims of sexual violence.
The reform comes at a time when Britain's justice system is facing huge backlogs. At the end of March, the backlog in Crown Courts stood at around 80,000 cases, with more than 15,000 of those related to sexual offences, according to Rape Crisis. Official figures also show that just 2.8 per cent of rape cases recorded by police in the year to March 2024 resulted in prosecution.
A previous study by the Office for National Statistics showed that only one in six victims of rape or attempted rape reported the attack to the police. More than a third of them said they did not trust the police to help them, or that the process would be humiliating.
The government says the new measures will cost the Ministry of Justice around £23m. However, victims' minister Alex Davies-Jones has admitted that specialist chambers alone are not enough to solve the backlog crisis and has stressed the need for wider reforms to the courts.
The decision was also prompted by the case of Labour MP Charlotte Nichols, who waived her automatic right to anonymity and spoke publicly in Parliament about her rape. She revealed that she had waited more than 1,000 days to go to court, demanding profound changes to the way the system treats victims of sexual violence.
