A lack of awareness in courts in England and Wales is putting at risk a reform of the way police investigate rape, the government’s independent rape adviser has warned.
Professor Katrin Hohl said legal experts were concerned progress would stall or reverse if the rape conviction rate fell significantly because a new approach to investigating cases, known as Operation Soteria, was disrupting outdated practices in the courts.
A vote on the Courts and Tribunals Bill on Tuesday could result in up to 65 Labor MPs not supporting measures that will remove the right to a jury trial in some cases. Ahead of the vote, Justice Secretary David Lammy launched a review of how courts deal with rape and sexual assault cases, and promised that rape victims would have access to independent legal advice from the end of this year.
Hohl said the future of the Soteria approach, which has significantly increased the number of rape charges brought by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), could be in jeopardy if the cases fail in court. The process focuses on the suspect’s behavior rather than seeking intrusive information about the victim’s background. The conviction rate for adults has fallen slightly, which experts say is due to the CPS charging more complex cases.
“The obvious final risk is that, if there comes a point where it is felt that the Soteria investigations are less likely to lead to convictions, the police and the CPS could revert to the way they were,” Hohl said. “I think if we can’t change the courts, I would be concerned about the sustainability of Soteria’s approach.”
Operation Soteria was launched in 2021 following the government’s latest rape review following a collapse in the number of rape cases coming to trial.
Under the changes, police officers are ordered to build cases based on suspects’ behavior rather than relying on an examination of witness credibility, and to limit the amount of intrusive material they request, including counseling notes and medical records.
But police faced barriers in court, Hohl said. “Anecdotally, we know that when officers enter the courtroom, they discover that the judges and attorneys have never heard of Soteria,” he said.
The number of rape victims withdrawing from prosecution before trial more than doubled between 2019 and 2024. The government has made changes to the way they are treated in a bid to stop the exodus.
Under new measures promised in Labour’s manifesto, rape victims will also have access to independent legal advice from later this year, when the new national Independent Legal Adviser (ILA) service is launched with initial funding of £6m over two years, the Ministry of Justice said.
“Operation Soteria has already changed the way rape cases are investigated by putting the focus where it belongs: on the suspect,” Lammy said. “By bringing in independent legal counsel and expanding Soteria’s principles into the courtroom, we ensure that victims have both the protection and support they deserve throughout the justice process.”
Ministers have introduced new laws to ban “bad reputation” evidence relating to a victim’s sexual history or abuse, and since January new Home Office rules have severely restricted police from accessing rape and sexual assault victims’ counseling notes, ending invasive “fishing expeditions” into their past.
Nogah Ofer of the Women’s Justice Center said the organization had seen several trials that had been hampered by a lack of understanding of the new approach.
In a recent trial witnessed by the CWJ, a defense attorney questioned a police officer about why they had not requested personal records on the victim. The lawyer then told the jury that the case had not been properly investigated and that his client had not received a fair trial, he said. “The police are following the law and the new guidelines, but as that has not been filtered to the courts, we fear it is being used to undermine the prosecution’s case,” he said. “This is already happening, but we are concerned it will get worse as more Soteria cases go to trial.”
Hohl said a Soteria pilot in London, expected to report in the fall, will examine the first tranche of cases to find out whether its founding principles were followed in court. Academics will review completed cases and observe live cases, while CPS lawyers, police officers and prosecutors will be interviewed and trained to convincingly present Soteria’s cases.
“I don’t think bringing Soteria’s principles to the courtroom is going to be easy, but that’s why this pilot is so important,” Hohl said. “But I don’t think the police will ever completely go back (to the previous way of operating), because I think once you’ve seen the impact of Soteria, you can’t unlearn the lessons.”
