Rape: Criminal Proceedings
(asked on 19th July 2022) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of trials for rape were delayed by defendants failing to place a plea at the first plea hearing in each of the last three years.
Data regarding the number of hearings before plea entry for defendants dealt with for rape offences in ‘for trial’ cases at the Crown Court can be found in the table below.
The latest data is available to the 12 months ending March 2022.
Table 1 – Defendants dealt with for rape offences in ‘for trial’ cases where a plea was entered and accepted in the Crown Court, England and Wales, 12 months to March 2022
Year | Total defendants | Plea entered at first hearing | Plea entered at subsequent hearings | Unknown |
Volume of defendants | ||||
2019/20 | 1,509 | 1,205 | 234 | 70 |
2020/21 | 1,047 | 797 | 192 | 58 |
2021/22 | 1,925 | 1,456 | 354 | 115 |
Percentage (%) | ||||
2019/20 | 100% | 80% | 16% | 5% |
2020/21 | 100% | 76% | 18% | 6% |
2021/22 | 100% | 76% | 18% | 6% |
Source: Criminal Court Statistics, Data and Analysis, Ministry of Justice
1) | The number of defendants relate to defendants in the cases that were disposed of in the reporting period where a plea was entered, e.g. this excludes instances where no plea was entered. |
2) | Number of hearings it took for a plea to be entered, including the hearing that it was entered at. ‘Unknown’ hearings include instances where no hearing information is available. |
3) | Most serious offence for each defendant. If a defendant is charged with more than one offence in a case the most serious offence will be taken to represent the defendant. |