Keir Starmer has questioned Rishi Sunak on how women and girls can have confidence in the criminal justice system “when almost all rapists don’t see the inside of a courtroom”.Source: Reuters
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00:00 Sarah Everard's murder should of course have been a watershed moment on policing reform,
00:04 on the criminal justice system, on violence against women and girls. But the sad reality
00:09 is that victims of rape, who have the courage and bravery to come forward, have just a 2.4%
00:16 chance of their perpetrators being caught and charged within the year. How does the
00:21 Prime Minister expect women to have confidence in the criminal justice system when almost
00:26 all rapists don't see the inside of a courtroom?
00:33 As we acknowledged a couple of years ago, of course we need to do more to improve rape
00:38 outcomes in the criminal justice system. And the plan, the Rape Action Review Plan, is
00:44 showing considerable progress. We've already increased the average sentences for rape by
00:51 a third since Labour were last in office. By the way, using a power that the Labour
00:57 party voted against in this House. And thanks to our Action Plan, we've seen police referrals
01:04 double, charges double, and last year there was a 50% increase in rape convictions. And
01:10 now rapists will serve every single day of their sentence behind bars. And the honourable
01:15 gentleman did raise his time at the Crown Prosecution Service, but he hasn't acknowledged
01:20 that under his tenure, rape convictions actually dropped.