Greetings from Grey Brussels

The Brussels conference examined developing an EU-wide policy on domestic violence

As I reach the deadline for my second blog, I find myself in Brussels. An awful city. I thought that centre of the EU would look different. It is dirty and grey with numerous construction sites dotted around.

I am attending the conference Zero Tolerance on Domestic Violence: Towards a Comprehensive EU-Wide Policy, which gathered different people from several countries and officials from the European Commission and the Council of Europe too.

During the conference, Karin Sandell from the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women in Sweden claimed that rape alone is actually the second most expensive crime for the state to deal with.

I found out that in the UK, sexual offences are the second most expensive crime to deal with for the state – after murder. The UK Home Office report - The Economic and Social Costs of Crime Against Individuals and Households- shows that the average cost of sexual offences reached almost £31,500 during 2003/04. So by investing in solving this problem, the country actually saves money.

See page seven of the report from this web link:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/rdsolr3005.pdf

The second bit of information that surprised me was that, according to Anthony Wills, chief executive of the UK’s Standing Together Against Domestic Violence organisation, 45 per cent of rape cases in England and Wales occur in marriage.

It is known that married woman are least likely to report rape, but according to British Crime Survey figures from 2003, almost half of rape cases are committed by an intimate partner of victim. The survey shows a high number of this kind of rape because it includes those that are not reported directly to the police.

Wills, who is a former chief superintendent of London’s Metropolitan Police, also told me that just eight per cent of rapes are “stranger rapes” – where the attacker is not known to the victim.

This figure is confirmed by the British Crime Survey 2003, see page 30 of the following link: http://www.wdvf.org.uk/hors237[1].pdf

As I knew before, national criminal legislations are not harmonised across Europe and or with any EU directives when it comes to rape prosecutions and sentencing, and it seems that things are not going to change any time soon.

The Council of Europe recently adopted a convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, stipulating what member countries should do to help rape survivors. But, it is non-binding.

After I return to Podgorica, I have to deal with the British embassy. As I plan to travel to London, I need a visa. It is going to be hard work to get one. If I succeed, some nice interviews will be done.

I am particularly looking forward to visiting the Bridge, a hospital in Bristol that is one of 29 specialist Sexual Assault Referral Centres in England and Wales.  It offers a forensic medical service, independent sexual violence advice and counselling and information on how to report rape to the police and the judicial processes involved in launching a prosecution.

According to statistics from a review of how police authorities handle rape complaints in England and Wales authored by the UK peer, Baroness Stern, just six per cent of reported rapes result in a conviction.

However, Baroness Stern’s review stresses that this six per cent figure is controversial and does not take into account that convictions for rape are measured differently in the UK and that it does not account for sex offenders convicted of lesser crimes. When adjusted to take lesser offences into account, the figure for convictions rises to 12 per cent. See the links below for more:

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/PDF/Stern_Review_acc_FINAL.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/feb/25/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation

This still startlingly low rate of convictions is partly explained by the fact that many rape survivors decide not to prosecute their attacker or change their statement, but also because of lack of evidence. Rape is notorious difficult to prove – particularly in terms of whether consent to sex was given or not.
    
The average sentence for sexual offences in the UK, according to the justice ministry, was eight years in 2009. This is the average sentence – not the maximum penalty available to judges. If you compare that with data from 2005, when the average sentence was around 6.5 years (81 months), it seems sentencing is now tougher for rapists in the UK.  

Scroll down this parliamentary record of UK justice questions for more information: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101108/text/101108w0003.htm

The UK’s Sentencing Council, which provides guidelines for courts, stipulates that a life prison sentence is the harshest punishment available for a convicted rapist. That means convicted rapists can spend between 12 and 18 years in prison.

According to 2008 justice ministry statistics, 29 convicted rapists were serving life sentences out of a total of 820 offenders in prison. See the following link for more information: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100308/text/100308w0023.htm#1003092003503

Read the Sentencing Council’s guidelines on sexual offences here:
http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/web_SexualOffencesAct_2003.pdf

How British society views this I hope to find out during my trip to London.

Jelena Kulidzan is a Podgorica-based journalist who is participating in the 2011 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

She will be writing regular updates on her investigation into how rape cases are prosecuted in Montenegro, the Balkans and European Union member states.