Police work to cut sex offence cases dropped over missing evidence

Police are working to crack down on sexual offence cases that have to be dropped due to police failings – saying even one such case is ‘too many’.

A report of lost and missing evidence in Rape and Sexual Offences (RASO) cases responds to concerns raised in September last year.

Local media reported that Thames Valley Police (TVP) had the third highest number of collapsed sexual offence cases nationally due to lost or missing evidence.

A report into this completed at the end of December showed that between October 2022 and September 2024, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stopped 20 serious cases after they had already started prosecuting them.

Nineteen sexual offences and one homicide were discontinued, making up 1.24 per cent of prosecutions.

Data showed that three dropped cases were ‘directly attributable to failure in police action.’

Others were due to issues with court processes, victims and witnesses and expert evidence conflicts, among others.

Speaking at the Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel on Friday (January 23), Matthew Barber, Thames Valley’s Police and Crime Commissioner, focused on the police failings aspect.

He said that the three cases, while a small proportion of the reason for dropped cases, was still ‘three cases too many.’

Mr Barber said it was a ‘widespread problem’ but that there had been a ‘significant amount of rigour’ in trying to identify what problems are causing the failures.

According to the report, the three cases resulting from police error all related to ‘failure to complete further work within CPS timescales.’

In other words, police did not gather the additional evidence needed soon enough for the prosecution to make a case trial ready in time.

The report did stress that discontinuance ‘is not always final’, and there are other changes afoot to improve matters.

If a case ends in an acquittal, it is then formally reviewed to see if anything could have been handled better and to learn lessons for future cases.

Procedures are in place for the police and the CPS to raise and resolve issues when preparing cases for trial – particularly in Custody Time Limit cases, where strict deadlines mean delays could result in a defendant being released prior to trial.

Other work relates to management of existing sexual offenders. There were times when cases were dropped due to weak or unavailable evidence or delays in forensics.

TVP is also trying to make greater use of the ‘Threshold Test’ to bring earlier charges in urgent sexual offence cases. This allows police to use custody time to ‘keep more dangerous offenders on remand.’

Charge rates have risen year on year, and reviews found no inappropriate use of the Threshold Test, the report said.

Moreover, the Management of Sexual or Violent Offenders (MOSOVO) team – a unit that manages risk posed by known offenders in the community – has shown a 53 per cent increase in arrests over the last year.

A statement from Detective Superintendent Jon Capps, head of the RASO, said that even with only three cases directly attributable to failure in police action, ‘any discontinuance [of a case] is of concern’ – and where there is failure, this is followed up.