Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, on how many occasions since 2010 the CPS has decided that a prosecution for rape is not in the public interest where the perpetrator has confessed.

The Crown Prosecution Service (‘CPS’) collects data showing the outcome of charging decisions, including cases flagged as rape where a decision not to prosecute was taken for public interest reasons. However, the CPS has no central record of the number of cases or suspects where a confession to the offence of rape (or any other offence) has been admitted. This information could only be obtained by an examination of CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.

The table below therefore shows the number of rape-flagged suspects where a no prosecution decision for public interest reasons was the outcome. The proportion of decisions where no further action is taken due to public interest reasons is fewer than 2% of all decisions. However, data on cases in which a confession has been admitted is not available.