What Is Wrong With Scotland Yard's Sapphire Sex Crime Unit?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10019962/Scotland-Yards-Sapphire-sex-crime-squad-in-shake-up-after-failed-inquiries.html

/// Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures have shown that across the country fewer than one in 30 rape victims see their attacker convicted. ///

These rapes have recently taken place, and fortunately some of the rapists have been convicted, but many it seems get away 'scot free'.

No apologies for the colour of their skins in some instances, but three of these links are today's news and one shown up while googling Scotland Yard's Sapphire Unit, only included because that case was to be proven later to have more serious implications.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315208/Anarchist-accused-raping-woman-twice-inside-Occupy-camp-St-Pauls-kept-sexual-conquests-tally-tent.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315224/Ipswich-sex-slave-case-Judges-fury-jails-trio-men-abducted-girl-13-forced-sex-slave.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-failed-to-investigate-alleged-rapist-who-went-on-to-kill-his-children-8511311.html

[Sharingan]

I think skin colour is largely irrelevant to this. What is relevant to me is that this is what is likely to happen when you allow number crunchers to be in charge of departments and set targets which then have to be achieved. Either a case of rape is able to be proceeded with or not, it should never be the case that victims are pressurised to retract their allegation by the very officers investigating because they want to hit their target presumably to get some sort of 'clever boy' bonus. Get rid of the number crunchers, targets and stupid names for departments ( what the hell does Sapphire actually mean in this context anyway) and have a clear hierarchy of personnel responsible for helping victims and arresting perpetrators who are accountable.
''In a highly damning report in February, the police watchdog found officers pressured rape victims to drop claims to hit targets, including a woman whose attacker went on to kill his two children.
The Sapphire unit's approach of "failing to believe victims" was "wholly inappropriate" and was "underperforming and overstretched", it said.
The review which found officers had lost sense of what policing was about, took no action over attacks and routinely failed to believe victims.
The unit drew up its own policy to encourage victims to retract statements and boost the number of rapes classed as "no crime", improving the squad’s poor detection rates threefold.''

[anotheoldgit]

Thank you for your interesting comment, but I am amazed that you are the only subscriber to this thread, I would have thought this would have been of more interest and thus reason for debate, certainly from the female members of this site at least .

[jim360]

Perhaps everyone just agrees with you.

[DaisyNonna]

How many of the unit were male? How many female?

[EDDIE51]

I was astounded to hear today that the 3 units that investigate rape , sexual assult and child abuse are to be integrated into one unit . I would have thought that they should all be in one unit any way .
Why the hell were / are there 3 units where there should have been one ? I bet they spent months arguing about which unit was to investigate a case where there was sexual abuse of males and females or both adults and children.

[DaisyNonna]

Sadly many women feel that that the police are less than helpful when assaults (sexual or violent) are reported. Too often dismissed as 'another domestic'. No point in complaining, no males seem to take it seriously.

[jim360]

How many of the unit were male? How many female?

Should that even matter? No. Does it? Very probably yes. Which, if true, is absolutely awful.

[Orderlimit]

In fairness to the police AOG, serious sexual offences are extremely difficult to investigate and prosecute and usually comes down to one persons word against another. If the accused raises the most common defence of consent then even forensic evidence is of little use although a medical examination can assist a case if, as an example, trauma injuries are identified.

The ONS stats can be misleading as we don't know whether they include all reported offences or all reported offence minus confirmed false allegations. The conviction rate for rape is actually at an all time high from April 2012 to March 2013, with nearly 3700 cases prosecuted of which 63.2% resulted in convictions. (Domestic violence , over 70.000 prosecutions , 74% convictions).

Unfortunately there are a lot of false reports made which are confirmed false by extensive investigations and later authorised by the CPS. In my opinion the police have to share some of the blame for the false reports for many reasons but mainly due to inexperienced officers who first liaise with the complainant (but this is another issue).

Yes its fair to say the CID departments are dominated by male officers but the complainant is always (or should) be given the choice whether they wish to see a male or female officer.

[Orderlimit]

P.s I also agree with the stats that suggest serious sexual offences, domestic violence and other appalling crimes are under-reported, for various reasons including lack of trust in the police.