Thousands Of Rape Reports Inaccurately Recorded By Police

Thousands of reports of rape allegations have been inaccurately recorded by the police over the past three years and in some cases never appeared in official figures, the Guardian can reveal. An analysis shows the vast majority of police forces audited by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) have failed to collect accurate rape crime figures, resulting in cases going unrecorded and investigations not being carried out, raising the possibility that perpetrators could go on toreoffend. More than one in 10 audited rape reports were found to be incorrect. The Guardian found complainants with mental health and addiction issues and victims of trafficking were particularly vulnerable to being struck from the record by a number of police forces.

The Guardian reviewed audits of 34 police forces published between August 2016 and July 2019. Only three of them were found to have accurately recorded complaints of rape, according to the audits carried out by HMICFRS. Of the more than 4,900 audited rape reports, 552 were found to be inaccurate. As every report of rape is not audited it is not possible to know exactly how many are inaccurate, but more than 150,000 rapes were reported to police in that time which means potentially more than 10,000 cases could be affected by inaccuracies.

Read more: Caelainn Barr, Guardain, https://is.gd/GYd9Lo