Patrick Christys: Our justice system is broken and criminals know it

We have a broken justice system in this country and criminals know it.

Damning new figures have revealed that the number of crimes that end up in court has slumped to a record low of just one in 15. Official data showed the proportion of recorded crimes which led to a charge or summons fell to just 6.5 per cent.

This is the first time the percentage of overall crimes that have led to a charge has dropped below 7% - bear in mind that that figure was 15% in 2015. The whole thing is pretty concerning but the absolute major concern for me is how few sex crimes ever make it to court.

Whilst the number of trials is dropping, the number of reported rapes is going up. The number of rapes reported to police in England and Wales soared 10 per cent year-on-year to record levels of more than 61,000 in the 12 months to June.

But the number of those reports which led to a suspect being taken to court fell to an all-time low. The number of sex crimes as a whole surged by 8 per cent - It included a record 48,553 recorded in the three months from April to June, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

That’s up 15 per cent on the same quarter in 2019. But just 1.4 per cent of rapes reported led to a suspect being charged or summoned – a record low.

I think we’re in a situation now where sex offenders know, and sadly they appear to be right about this, that if they commit a sex crime, they’ll get away with it. What does this mean for the safety of women and girls on our streets? Well, it means they aren’t safe, doesn’t it.

Authorities always hide behind the argument that there have been several high profile events, like the murder of Sarah Everard, that lead to an increase in people reporting crimes, that may be the case. They also usually hide behind the idea that they’ve got better at recording crimes, and that’s why the numbers go up.

I can’t help but feel as though the reality is simply that there are more crimes being committed, probably because there are more people than ever before, and that because our police force isn’t expanding at the same rate then they don’t have the capacity to charge as many people and bring them to court.

It could also be that more than half of magistrates courts have closed since 2010, meaning that people have to travel upwards of 50 miles for local justice…it’s not very local is it? It’s more like distant justice.

Look, the Sarah Everard case was shocking from top to bottom but there’s something that wasn’t spoken about as much as I think it should have been – Wayne Couzens was a serving Metropolitan Police officer, he knows about how police investigate crimes, about how likely or otherwise people are to get caught…and he thought he’d get away with it.

That’s the level of faith he had in our justice system. As long as criminals, especially dangerous sex criminals, know that if they commit a crime, they probably won’t get caught and they probably won’t go to court, then they’re going to keep doing it.