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Violence Against Women

That is cause and effect. That is a rate of just under one in five. The lowest rate is in Dorset, with 1.6 per cent., where only one in 60 reported rapes leads to conviction. The Metropolitan Police Authority rate is 8.2 per cent. and of 12 police force areas, more than one in four had a rape conviction rate of less than 5 per cent. in 2007. I think that that demonstrates the hon. Gentleman's point that there is a huge challenge to get women to come forward. How on earth, when the number of rapes hovers around the 12,000 mark and the conviction rate is still so low, do we persuade women that it is worth their coming forward when it is so traumatic to do so? The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) described the discomfort for women who have to travel and protect the evidence about something so intimate, private and personal, which they would really do not want to do. I cannot imagine how a woman does that, when the first instinct would be to cleanse herself. One of the most difficult situations a woman may face must be the time lag to allow for examination before being able to cleanse that appalling crime from her. Resource is not infinite, and it is a matter of how fast and how much we can improve the conviction rate, and improve facilities.