Specialist courtrooms to prioritise rape cases in England and Wales

Specialist courtrooms prioritising cases of rape and other serious sex offences are to be introduced across England and Wales, with campaigners welcoming the move as potentially transformative.

The changes, designed to encourage more survivors to come forward, will include the provision of private entrances and waiting rooms, and facilities equipped for recording evidence in advance and observing sentencing remotely.

Announcing the move, Andy Burnham said victims of rape and serious sexual offences had felt let down by the justice system for too long, adding that prosecution rates for rape remained “shamefully low”, with many victims waiting years for justice.

“These changes are long overdue and will make a significant difference, but focusing on prosecution alone will not be enough,” the prime minister said.

“So as well as ensuring victims get justice, we will step up action to prevent these horrific crimes from happening in the first place.”

A multimillion-pound cash injection is intended to make sure every crown court in England and Wales has at least one room set up specifically to hear rape and serious sexual offence cases within two years.

Rape and serious sexual offence cases will also be prioritised in courts more widely, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced. Such trials will be given a fixed date, as opposed to being placed on floating lists where they can be moved at short notice and delayed by months.

Among those welcoming the announcement was Labour’s Charlotte Nichols, who told the House of Commons this year she was raped after an event she attended as an MP and waited 1,088 days for her case to get to court.

Nichols said: “Today marks a hugely important milestone, helping to improve the experience of victims and survivors of sexual violence in the court system who are all too often retraumatised by seeking justice.

“I’m proud that substantive, meaningful change has come from waiving my anonymity to speak about my own experiences, and am hugely grateful to the prime minister and lord chancellor for taking forward these measures, as I know the difference they would have made for me and so many of the survivors I have worked with in recent years.”

The MoJ cited Nichols’ “immense strength and bravery” in its announcement.

While welcoming the announcement, there was a warning by the victims commissioner, Claire Waxman, that the crown court backlog of rape and sexual offence cases was now “significantly worse” than when she first called for specialist courts in 2021.

She said: “Tens of thousands more victims are now waiting for their cases to reach trial, and specialist courts alone will not be enough to tackle the scale of the delays or deliver the swift justice victims deserve. Indeed, court delays could prevent many rape victims from accessing the specialist courtrooms that are being set up to support them.”

Further changes announced include new trauma-informed training for court staff and a pilot scheme giving victims of sex offences a single point of contact to ensure their needs are met during the court process.

Separate from the funding for courtrooms, there will also be £43m to support survivors through the national rape and sexual abuse support fund for the next two years, including through counselling, therapy, outreach and group activities.

The new measures also include the creation of a rape justice taskforce, drawing figures from across the criminal justice system to tackle the rising rate of postponed rape trials and confront the myths that cause victims to withdraw from cases.

The Conservatives’ shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, said tackling delays in rape trials was long overdue, but that the courts backlog had been “used” by the Labour as justification for controversial plans to significantly restrict the right to jury trials.

“If resources can be found to accelerate rape trials, why are they persisting in their attack on this ancient right to jury trials?” he said.

In 2022, an announcement by Boris Johnson’s government of three specialist courtrooms to prosecute rape cases was dismissed by legal blogger the Secret Barrister as a “gimmick” that did not address the chronic underfunding of the justice system.

Changes in the new provisions include many of the reforms that campaigners and charities have been calling for over many years.

“Taken together, they reflect the urgency of ensuring that courts are fit for purpose and properly meet the needs of victims and survivors, which is crucial to securing justice,” said Ciara Bergman, the chief executive of Rape Crisis England & Wales.

“We’re particularly pleased to see measures that will improve trial efficiency and ensure survivors are better able to participate in, and observe, proceedings.”