How we forced the government’s hand after six years of misleading rape charge data

Beginning in October, the Home Office will start publishing figures that it has been collecting from police forces since 2017, showing how many suspects purportedly charged over recorded crimes were actually charged with an alternative offence. 

When we first approached the department back in April, there were no answers forthcoming about why the figures were not being published along with the rest of its crime stats every three months, and whether it had plans to release them in the future  – despite us asking repeatedly. 

A Freedom of Information request had already revealed to us that more than 1,600 of the suspected rapists that official data said had been charged had actually been charged with non-rape crimes. Our focus has been on sexual violence, but outcomes for all types of crime may be affected.

We knew there was a problem, both with a lack of transparency, and with what the data had been telling us about the criminal justice system's record on rape, but the Home Office appeared not to agree. 

Now with the help of Labour’s Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry, who has put pressure on Attorney General Victoria Prentis to look into the matter, it has finally buckled. 

The Home Office says (through Prentis) that it had no intention to mislead the public, and that it had simply taken time for the new recording practice to become fully “embedded within police forces”. 

But six years is an awfully long time to sit on the data – and it is convenient the Home Office has only decided the recording is embedded and the data ready to see the light of day once attention was drawn onto its existence against its will.  

The Home Office’s embedding excuse also does not stand up to scrutiny, as we have discovered that multiple forces appear not to be recording the data anyway. We have been given no answers as to why. 

Context is key here. In recent years, an enormous spotlight has been on the criminal justice system over plummeting rape prosecutions. 

The government agreed in its rape review that victims were being failed and committed to increasing the proportion of rape suspects that are charged. 

And all the while it knew the data we're all relying on to measure its success might not give the full picture. 

It's still a few months until the government will start putting the figures out there officially. In the meantime we will continue holding the authorities to account - stay tuned for more revelations very soon.