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Convicting Rapists/Protecting Victims

I am going to carry on, because I have got a lot to say and I am conscious that others wish to speak. No doubt Opposition Members will take their chances to do so. Capacity to consent has been a difficult area. Problems occur where a person is intoxicated. A person can be intoxicated to the extent that they do not have the capacity to consent. That can be exploited in order to have sex and if it is, that is rape. We have asked whether the law in that area needs changing. Contrary to some assertions in the press, we were never contemplating a grid system, whereby a person's capacity could be judged against what they had drunk, but the problem was highlighted when the Crown withdrew a case in Swansea because the complainant could not say that she had said no, as it were, because she was very drunk. The question whether she was so drunk that she did not have the capacity to decide either way was not left to the jury, but now we have a judgment from the Court of Appeal, in the case of R v. Bree last March, saying that that is how the law should operate. A person's capacity to consent through the drink or drugs is what matters, and that capacity can evaporate well before she becomes unconscious. That is the issue to be left to the jury now. It is not a question of asking, ““Was she so drunk that she can't remember whether she consented or not?”” Rather, the jury must ask whether she was so drunk that she could not have had the capacity to say yes or no. We do not feel that we have to do any more, because that case has clarified the law. It is notable, however, that as recently as July, there was another case on almost exactly the same facts, in which the judge at first instance behaved in almost exactly the same way. That case has come to the Court of Appeal and been put right, and the law has now been set out with even greater clarity. The Judicial Studies Board has issued guidance on this matter for judges, and it is imperative that they take it on board. I know that the board will make greater efforts to spread the judgment if it needs to. It is obviously a matter for concern that, having had a clear judgment in March, the same issue had to go to the Court of Appeal following a case in July. We have already put this into guidance for our police and prosecutors on sexual offences. We also looked at whether evidence on the psychological impact of sexual offending on victims should be presented in court by experts, and whether there were other ways of presenting juries with the information about victims in general, rather than about the behaviour of a specific individual. A lot of myths surround the crime of rape. An Amnesty International document produced in 2005 identifies a blame culture against victims of rape. Similar research in the US suggests that that is an important feature in many acquittals. Every report from the Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate and from the inspectorate of constabulary has talked about the scepticism about rape complainants that is borne of myths, and about the misunderstandings about how complainants will behave after they have been raped. It has been practical to train those myths away from professionals. Lawyers and prosecutors have been trained, and judges go on serious sexual offence courses. Barristers will now have to go on a course before they can prosecute rape cases. Juries, however, have so far been out of reach. We now consider it desirable for juries to receive information about the psychological reactions of rape victims, in order to dispel these myths. However, rather than have the prosecution present evidence, we are going to set up a group of academics, doctors and—I am happy to say—judges to help us with this proposition.