Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many times (a) the CPS or (b) victims have requested that he reconsider court sentences for rape under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 on the grounds of undue leniency since 2009-10; on how many occasions he referred those cases to the Court of Appeal in each of those years; and on how many occasions the Court of Appeal decided (i) that the sentence was unduly lenient and (ii) to increase the sentence in each year in that period.

The records that the Attorney General’s Office holds reveal the following data in relation to rape offences.

Please note that these figures include referrals for sentences passed for rape offences charged under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act (for offences committed prior to the commencement of the 2003 Act but which were not sentenced until 2009 or afterwards) as well as for rape offences charged under the provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It is of course likely that a high proportion of the referrals received by my office from the CPS will have been submitted with the full support of the victim.