Specialist courts to handle cases of rape and other sexual offences will be introduced across England and Wales over the next two years, the prime minister has announced.
Each crown court will have at least one courtroom set up to hear such cases, while alleged victims will be able to view proceedings remotely and give evidence from a separate room via video link.
They will also be provided with private entrances and waiting rooms to separate them from defendants, though this will be dependent on the architecture of each building.
Rape Crisis England and Wales said this was a “significant step forward” that would introduce several reforms it had been requesting for years.
“Taken together, they reflect the urgency of ensuring that courts are fit for purpose and properly meet the needs of victims and survivors, which is crucial to securing justice,” the charity’s chief executive, Ciara Bergman, said.
Charities have complained that low prosecution rates for sexual offences and delays to court proceedings had disuaded victims from coming forward or pursuing justice.
Just 2.8% of rape offences recorded by police led to prosecutions in the year ending March 2024 and were the crimes that took the longest to investigate.
A prior ONS study, using data from 2017-2020, suggested that only a sixth of the actual number of rape and attempted rape victims had reported their assault to the police, with more than a third saying this was because they felt the police could not help or that the process would be humiliating.
Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said the new measures were part of efforts to bring down a backlog of Crown Court cases, which stood at 80,098 at the end of March.
Rape Crisis England and Wales said 15,373 of these cases – 19% – related to sexual offences.
Davies-Jones told BBC Breakfast that the introduction of specialist courtrooms “isn’t enough on its own” to tackle the backlog and stressed the importance of the Courts and Tribunals Bill to improve “timeliness, effectiveness and also prevention”.
The Conservatives say the “long overdue” move should not come with restricting the number of jury trials, which is another provision of the bill.
Under the new measures, expected to cost around £23m of the Ministry of Justice’s budget, court staff will also be given “trauma-informed training” and a single person of contact will be assigned to each survivor.
From next month, trials will be given a fixed date rather than placed on floating lists in what Prime Minister Andy Burnham said was an effort to “rebalance the scales of justice and put victims first”.
There are 84 crown court buildings across England and Wales, containing around 500 courtrooms, and Davies-Jones said the government was determined that every one of them would have at least one specialist rape and sexual offences courtroom by 2028.
Where architecture might prevent courtroom upgrades, Davies-Jones said staff would be expected to co-ordinate a “trauma informed approach” – for instance by scheduling different arrival times and rooms to give evidence from for victims and defendants.
The government said the changes follow Labour MP Charlotte Nichols showing “immense strength and bravery” in speaking publicly about being raped and calling for changes to the justice system.
Nichols waived her automatic right to anonymity in March when she made a Commons speech in which she described having to wait more than 1,000 days to go to court.
