EXCLUSIVE: 300 women raped a day in UK but just a handful prosecuted, says Shadow Home Secretary

AN estimated 300 women are raped every day in the UK, with just a fraction of offenders prosecuted, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (above in video and below) revealed. Mrs Cooper blamed the decade of Tory austerity from 2010 for an alarming drop in prosecutions across all crimes. Speaking at the Police and Crime Commissioners' and National Police Chiefs' Council annual summit in Westminster on Thursday, she said: "In 94 per cent of crimes, no one is charged, no one pays the price, and there is no justice.

"It is worst of all for violence against women. "It's estimated that 300 women will be raped today. Less than 200 will be reported. Just three or four will make it to court never mind a prison cell. "That is truly appalling. And it has got worse."

The amount of rapes and sexual offences hit the highest on record in the year to March 2022, with nearly 200,000 crimes recorded - a jump of 32 per cent on the previous year. It is estimated a similar amount are never reported each year. Latest Home Office data shows just 2.9 per cent of reported sexual offences and 1.3 per cent of rapes result in a charge. A huge drop from 2016 when 9.6 per cent of sexual offences and 7 per cent of rapes resulted in a charge or summons.

Mrs Cooper added: "We know there is some excellent work that has been done by individual forces... or the work of Avon and Somerset. But overall the system isn’t working. We will set out a major strategy to tackle violence against women and girls." Speaking at the same summit, Home Secretary Suella Braverman (above and below in video from the summit) accepted the failings, but said things were starting to improve. She said: "I also want to see a major improvement in the way the whole of the criminal justice system deals with rape. It is promising that more victims of sexual offences are coming forward to report crimes to the police and that more suspects are being charged.

"But we still have a very long way to go. As a society, too often, we have failed the victims of sexual violence. That cannot continue." She said Operation Soteria was a Home Office supported programme bringing together police, the CPS, and academic expertise to "transform the response to rape." She said Avon and Somerset, the pioneering force in Operation Soteria, has reported charge rates have tripled since the pilot, and arrests are twice as high.