Why do we continue to treat rape as a marginal crime?

ACCORDING to shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, expanding on the contents of their new manifesto, should they win the general election next month, Labour will establish 80 new rape courts across and England and Wales to fast-track cases as part of "wide-ranging plans to tackle violence against women and girls".

- Dylan Jones

Apparently, these special courts will be set up in unused rooms in existing crown courts, in an effort to stem the growing backlog that causes more than 50 per cent of rape victims to drop out before their cases start.

Labour say that rape has effectively been decriminalised, and while I think that's hysterical electioneering, it's certainly true that cases take too long to reach court, as the post-lockdown judicial system grinds ever slower. Shockingly, just 2.6 per cent of rape cases result in a charge. There is no measure by which this isn't an appalling figure.

Tragically, we probably all know someone who has suffered some form of sexual abuse, and while we can sympathise and empathise, it's impossible to understand the psychological damage that can linger, often forever. Regardless of political rhetoric, I still think that rape feels minimised by society, and these figures bear that out. It has become a terrible reality that the British judicial system has been even more sluggish since we staggered out of lockdown, and these numbers prove it.