argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. He is quite right that to get this complicated and difficult piece of work correct, it was appropriate for us to delay. I have to confess that I was pretty gung-ho —anxious to get it out before Christmas. But as I say, the intervention of the sector and the judicial review meant that we had to hold off because of the implications My hon. Friend is quite right that the key issue is not so much the document, which is an important statement and political moment, but the operationalisation of what is within it. While we are dealing with a police service of tens of thousands of individuals, a prosecution service with many people involved, and lots of other parties that take a case from report to court, getting them all to both act and think differently—the culture change as well as the operational change—will be an enormous challenge. That is what we are focused on. He will be pleased to know that I have convened a Criminal Justice Board taskforce of key individuals in the organisations involved to try to drive that operational challenge of embedding change.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said earlier, we have committed that the review will be published shortly after the recess, but as I said in answer to an earlier question, please do not believe that we are waiting for the production of the plan to start the work. Indeed, much of the work has been done already. The hon. Lady will know, for example, that Project Bluestone in Avon and Somerset police is doing fantastic work at the moment on a new model of operation for this kind of investigation and on joint close working between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. They have a joint operational improvement board. They have launched their action plan. There was significant support for that and a massive mobilisation across policing to deal with, in particular, the new disclosure guidelines that the Attorney General’s Office has issued in response to the growth in the use of mobile phones in the investigation of crime, particularly in this area I would be more than happy to look at the Labour Green Paper, because I do not think there is any monopoly on good ideas in this area, as I hope that my opposite number will look with an open mind at the plan that we publish and the work we intend to do. We all have a shared desire here to see better outcomes and more justice for victims in court, and we will have to stand shoulder to shoulder if we are going to make that happen.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Peter Moore (Conservative, Centre-right): The devastating impact on victims from rape, sexual exploitation, sexual violence and grooming is shattering and long-lasting, and every victim must feel able to come forward with confidence that their complaint will be fully investigated and, where evidence supports, that charges and prosecutions will follow. However, not all victims have confidence in the criminal justice system, so can my hon. Friend outline what steps the Government are taking to support those victims and provide reassurance that any complaint will be taken seriously?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right that we have to make sure in all we do that victims are at the heart of the criminal justice system, and he will have seen in the recent Queen’s Speech that we have made a commitment to bring in a new victims law. It will put the victims code, which has 12 strong rights for victims in the criminal justice system, into law and ensure that all the operational partners—the police, the CPS and the courts, which are all rightly independent of Government—see the need to take up the challenge of putting victims at the heart of the system.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member is quite right. As I have said, the numbers are deeply, deeply regrettable, and he is correct that not enough victims are getting justice in court. There have obviously been significant changes in technology, not least the advent of the mobile phone and the critical part it plays in so many of these investigations. We need to get ourselves in shape, both in terms of capacity and capability, and we need the right framework around inquiry and disclosure for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. That work is ongoing. We have ambitions, obviously, to raise the number very significantly, but I would not underestimate the operational challenge in embedding this across 43 police forces. The hon. Gentleman will know that creating the structural change alongside the cultural change in two operationally independent organisations, as well as in the court system, will take time and a foundational approach to change, which we are committed to and on which the work has started already.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, as usual, puts her finger on the key issue—the relationship between the police and the CPS, in their collaboration to get a case to court, is absolutely critical. I hope she saw that, in January, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Crown Prosecution Service launched their joint national action plan, with five themed areas of work that are designed to do exactly that. Those are on support for victims; casework quality and progression; digital capability and disclosure, including looking at mobile phones, as I mentioned earlier; people and expertise—critically, building knowledge and expertise—and engaging properly with stakeholders. I know that Deputy Chief Constable Sarah Crew, with whom I have met many times, and Baljit Ubhey and Sue Hemming from the CPS are leading the charge on this. They form part of the criminal justice support taskforce, which I lead, to try to drive the kind of results that we want to see.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Data and transparency is one of the key themes that we have been looking at as part of the rape review. There will be an announcement, when the plan comes, about what we intend to do in terms of reporting. I am afraid that I do not support her call for more devolution. I think that England and Wales are stronger together on this issue, as on so many others.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): The vast majority of rape victims know the perpetrator in the first place, and the vast majority are in relationships with them, or historically have been. The key here is ensuring that once a victim of rape reports it to the police, they are dealt with not only sympathetically, but supported all the way along the line to court. This is a structural and cultural change that needs to take place. What effort is my hon. Friend making to ensure that cultural change, as well as structural change, is actually implemented?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the key issues that we have to address is what they call "victim attrition", which is a slightly depersonalised, desensitised phrase for victims not feeling that they are going to get justice and giving up along the way. I was very pleased that the Government announced a massive increase in the amount of money being given to create the posts of independent sexual violence advisers and domestic abuse advisers, who will help to support victims through the criminal justice system to make sure that they get to court in good shape and able to give the evidence that they wish to give. There will be more about this issue in the review and I hope that, when it comes, he will welcome it.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Lady about resources and training. The development of expertise, which she obviously had in her career, is a key part of the Crown Prosecution Service and National Police Chiefs’ Council joint national action plan. We see better results from specialist teams, and often those structural issues that allow police officers to stay in post for longer, and develop an expertise in what my hon. Friend will know is a difficult and sensitive area of investigation, are critical. We must also ensure that the CPS is able to develop that specialism, and that will be a critical part of the joint national action plan.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry to hear the numbers from South Yorkshire, and I know the hon. Lady will address them with the police and crime commissioner there, who is responsible for the performance of the police. He also chairs the local criminal justice board, which is designed to bring partners together in that area to work on exactly these issues. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill includes provisions that will focus on offences that largely impact women, not least the end of the halfway release for serious sexual offenders, including rapists who, when the Bill goes through, will have to serve two-thirds of their sentence, providing greater protection and justice for their victims.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Laura Rose Farris (Conservative, Centre-right): Because the majority of rapes take place behind closed doors, where the victim knows the perpetrator, and in circumstances that are incredibly difficult to prove afterwards, it has always been a difficult crime for which to get a conviction. The most striking features of the current rate are the high rate of attrition, and the fact that the CPS has seen fit to update the rape and serious sexual offences guidance all the way through the year on victim behaviour. Does my hon. Friend think there is a case for specialised prosecutors, and a specialist sexual offences court to deal with such crimes?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I had the pleasure of watching a talk that my hon. Friend gave last night to a think-tank about these issues, and she was very thoughtful and interesting on this subject. Across all crime types we see that specialism pays, both in apprehending the perpetrator, but also in getting a conviction. We must ensure that the police and CPS can develop those specialisms. All prosecutions are currently charged by specialist RASSO prosecutors, but a collective expertise must be a key mission for us. Alongside that, we must ensure that victims have specialist support, and expertise is key to that My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a particularly difficult, evidential situation, where often it is one word against another, and other circumstantial evidence may or may not lead to a conviction. I want to concentrate on the key area of recent reporting, and on encouraging people to report as soon as possible. As she will know, there is a short forensic window in such situations—normally 7 to 10 days—and there are sensitive forensic facilities where evidence can be gathered. We know that in such circumstances, the likelihood of conviction is much greater. For historical offenders it is even more difficult, which is why expertise is even more important.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for her question, but it would be a mistake to point to one particular issue driving the drop. We know, for example, that the significant fall from 2016-17 was down to difficulties with disclosure that arose from particular cases, and the impact that that has had on both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service I think it is sometimes a mistake to give the impression that somehow a decision was made that this should happen. It was not. There has been a pattern of decline over a number of years. Part of the reason that we instituted the rape review, admittedly 24 months ago, was to try to diagnose exactly what has gone wrong—exactly why these cases are failing to get to court, why so many witnesses are falling out before they get to court, why we are seeing difficulties with disclosure, and what we can do to improve, for example, our operation of digital forensics, in terms of both capacity and capability. All that will be contained in the review. I understand people’s impatience; there is not much longer to wait now.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
David Timothy Simmonds (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend the Government for the work that has already been put in hand to improve support for rape complainants. Will my hon. Friend give an update on when the new 2017 guidance on achieving best evidence—ABE—will be published and set out how the use of recorded pre-trial evidence and the specialist input of the Criminal Bar Association are informing the Government’s next steps?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s constructive question. He is right; we do think that the use of section 28, as it is called—giving recorded evidence—will have a role to play. As he will know, we have rolled it out for vulnerable victims across all Crown courts, and we now have a number of pathfinder courts—in Liverpool and, I think, Leeds—where we are using it in cases of intimidated witnesses, not least in cases of rape and sexual violence. As for the guidance that he points towards, that is a police-owned document, and I know that they are collaborating closely with the CPS and the Criminal Bar Association to get it right. We stand ready to help them with publication once their work is finished.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): It is obviously a matter of deep regret that anybody feels prevented from coming forward to report a rape, or indeed a sexual assault, to the police. That is one of the issues that we need to address—building confidence among victims that they should and could step forward, recognising at all times that it takes enormous courage to do so. Like the hon. Lady, I have sat with victims of this particularly appalling and intimate crime over the years, so I recognise the devastating impact that it can have. As to the measures that she calls for, I obviously cannot make an announcement today, but I recommend that, when the review is published, she reads it from cover to cover.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Suzanne Webb (Conservative, Centre-right): Being believed is one of the most important things for a rape victim’s confidence. Being able to come forward and report the rape in the first instance is not easy, especially when sexual abuse survivors really fear that if they were to report the crime no one would believe them, when victims know that society can blame them for the aggression or, as is often the case, when the rape victim was known by the perpetrator. I therefore thank my hon. Friend for his assurance today that the voices of victims are at the heart of the review, but will he assure me that rape victims going forward will have confidence in the criminal justice system’s handling of rape complaints?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): While my primary objective will be to get more cases into court—that, fundamentally, is the problem we are trying to address—my hon. Friend is quite right that, alongside that, it is completely critical that we build confidence among victims in the criminal justice system. We have seen an increase in reported rape over the last few years, and it is quite a significant increase, so more people are confident to come forward. However, given the performance figures so far, that could easily slip away, so making sure they are at the heart of decision making—that they know when they come forward that they can access the support they need, and can get the guidance and indeed the advocacy they need; that they will be received by police officers and prosecutors who are invested properly in and are looking dispassionately at the investigation; and that the natural inquiries required as part of this sort of offence investigation are proportionate and do not invade privacy in a disproportionate way—will be critical to the mission, and I hope that that is what she will find in the report.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Lady that demographics of all types matter. Indeed, I forget who it was, but someone said, "If you can’t measure something, you don’t know how to change it". One of the first questions I have asked in my initial meetings in this job, when officials come in with a particular area of policy to deal with, is: do we actually know what is happening—do we have a clear picture of what is happening out there on the streets and communities we serve? I am more than happy to go back and have a look at the particular issue she has raised to make sure that we are getting the recording right.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Claire Coryl Julia Coutinho (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the Government’s support for independent sexual violence advisers, who we know have a profound effect in helping victims to get through the court process. However, we know that there is an issue in convictions versus acquittals in the court process as well. Could my hon. Friend please assure me that this will be thoroughly investigated in the rape review, but also that we will be looking at how we communicate the changes on a national level, so that people who might not otherwise be engaged in the political stories of the day will learn about these changes and have confidence in the system going forward?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to create a self-reinforcing story of success, where the support we give to victims and the changes in our methodology and indeed practices between the police and the CPS lead to a greater number of cases going into court, and that in turn leads to a greater number of convictions, which should build confidence among victims. I hope that is exactly the kind of spiral of success that the report will produce.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously, one of the key themes that we wanted to address as a Government is a general sense of safety in the public realm. That is why we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers and working day and night to drive performance on all crime types to create a greater sense of safety and security on our streets for men and women I do not accept necessarily, however, that we need a Bill as the hon. Lady has outlined, not least because we have managed to do a fair amount—a huge amount, actually—on violence against women and girls over the past few years through other means, as I set out earlier. We have new offences of coercive control, upskirting and stalking, and on revenge porn. The rough sex defence has been dealt with, and we have introduced modern slavery offences, when women are often trafficked for sex. We have even campaigned on rape being used as a weapon of war around the world. Alongside that are the report we have made on refuges, the domestic abuse helplines and work that we are doing now on the rape review That huge package points towards the safety of women and girls. While there is much to be proud of in that, there is still a lot more to do, which is why later this year we will publish a violence against women and girls strategy alongside a complementary domestic abuse strategy.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The pandemic has been extremely challenging for the court system over the past year or so, but we all have a duty not to be hyperbolic in our language—it is not in meltdown. Justice is still being dispensed in the courts, and while delay built up naturally during the pandemic, an enormous amount of work has been done to deal with it, with the opening of Nightingale courts and a massive expansion of capacity. We are seeing progress, so I hope that the hon. Lady will focus on the work that needs to be done to recover from the pandemic. We will see more positive outcomes in the months to come.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Elizabeth Atherton (Conservative, Centre-right): The military conviction rate is far lower than that in the civil system. Service personnel and veterans’ representatives are all calling for military rape to be heard in civilian courts. Will my right hon. Friend agree to discuss with his Ministry of Defence counterpart that all victims, regardless of where the assault took place, should receive the justice that they deserve?
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Education
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes an important point which, as I am sure she appreciates, is not within my ministerial ambit to comment on. However, through the work of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the online harms Bill and of the Department for Education, we are all very much aware that young people take their signals and learn their behaviour from the adults around them. We all have a duty to ensure that they grow up as right-thinking members of society.
Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape — House of Commons, 2021-05-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Marco Longhi (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a fact that victims of rape and sexual assault are deterred from reporting these crimes. The combination of very low conviction rates, reporting requirements and a societal view of victim blaming combine to contribute against these feelings of deterrence. What can the Government do to ensure that the voices of victims are right at the heart of the review?