The government has today (7th May 2025) introduced a new Victims and Courts Bill aiming to better protect victims and improve access to justice.
Some of the measures announced today reflect the tireless campaigning of victims and their families; many of whom have endured deeply traumatic experiences within the criminal justice system and family courts.
These new measures include:
- Automatic restriction of parental responsibility for perpetrators of child sexual offences against their own child
- New powers for the Victims’ Commissioner to hold the government to account, empowering them to play a greater role in individual cases which raise systemic issues to ensure that lessons are learned.
- Powers for judges to impose sanctions on perpetrators who don’t attend sentencing.
- Updating the Victim Contact Scheme and establishing a new Victim Helpline so victims have a clear route to request information about an offender’s release.
Leading organisations working to end violence against women and girls - Centre for Women’s Justice, End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan, Rape Crisis England & Wales, and Rights of Women - call on the government to use the Bill to put an end to harmful and re-traumatising legal practices that wrongly seek to discredit rape survivors’ experiences.
So-called 'bad character' evidence
Right now, when someone reports being raped, any past disclosures of sexual violence - no matter how unrelated - can be used against them in court.
That means a survivor could be questioned in front of a jury about a previous experience of abuse, even if it happened years earlier and was committed by a different perpetrator.
In some cases, defence lawyers use this to argue the survivor is lying, claiming that having reported abuse before makes them less credible. This deeply harmful tactic ignores the reality that many women are subjected to more than one incident of sexual violence in their lives. It can make survivors feel disbelieved, blamed and retraumatised, all while they're simply trying to seek justice.
This kind of cross-examination often happens unexpectedly—sometimes even when the survivor is already giving evidence. The impact can be devastating.
We’re calling on the government to change the law to protect survivors from this injustice.
What needs to change
We want to see clear, strong guidance for judges to stop previous experiences of abuse being wrongly used to undermine a survivor’s account.
Specifically, we are asking for changes to section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 so that a survivor’s earlier disclosure of sexual violence cannot be used in court unless there is a proper evidential basis to assert the previous disclosure was false.
Guidance should also clarify that the following facts relating to previous unrelated disclosures of sexual violence do not of themselves provide this evidential basis:
- The victim/survivor did not report the incident to the police.
- The victim/survivor did not support a prosecution following a report.
- That the police or CPS closed the case without charge.
- That the case was prosecuted and the accused acquitted (in this situation the jury could have concluded that he was probably guilty, but they could not be sure, so the criminal standard was not reached).
Nogah Ofer, solicitor at Centre for Women’s Justice, said:
“It is deeply unfair for rape survivors to be accused of lying, simply because they have come forward to disclose other sexual offending in the past. We need to tighten up the law to ensure that our criminal justice system reflects the protections that the Court of Appeal has laid down.”
Rebecca Hitchen, Head of Policy & Campaigns at the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:
“The criminal justice system can often be a site of harm for survivors, rather than a route to justice. This must change. One clear way the government can address this is by strengthening the Victims and Courts Bill to restrict the use of a survivor’s previous experiences of sexual violence as part of a defence strategy. The reality is that many women experience multiple incidents of sexual violence over their lifetime—this should not used against them. This traumatic and profoundly distressing practice undermines their ability to give evidence. It must be stopped.”
Sumanta Roy, Head of Research, Evaluation and Development at Imkaan said:
“We know that Black and minoritised victim-survivors of rape and sexual violence are less likely to be believed and are treated more harshly by the police, courts and juries because of the enduring impact of systemic racism and misogyny. It's critical that we strengthen the legal system to ensure that previous disclosures of sexual violence are not used by the courts to unfairly undermine the credibility of survivors, re-traumatise and deny their access to justice.”
Maxime Rowson, Policy Lead at Rape Crisis England & Wales, said:
“1 in 2 adult survivors of rape have experienced sexual violence more than once. Some choose to disclose the abuse to employers, support services or medical professionals only, who make a record of this disclosure, which is never reported to the police. Others do go to the police, but fewer than 6% of reported rapes lead to prosecution due to there being insufficient evidence available.
What’s deeply troubling is that when survivors report further abuse, their past experiences of sexual violence can be used against them, suggesting they are now lying. That is simply unacceptable.
The criminal justice system should protect survivors, not cause more harm. Yet, time and again, survivors tell us that going through the system feels re-traumatising. The Victims and Courts is a crucial chance to change that - by stopping the use of so-called 'bad character' evidence that unfairly discredits survivors in court.”
Hannah Couchman, Senior Legal Officer at Rights of Women, said:
“Every day, survivors reach out to Rights of Women for support as they navigate a complex justice system that was not designed to meet their needs and so often leaves them re-traumatised. We welcome the opportunity this Bill presents to centre those needs, protect their rights and increase accountability. This Bill must form part of a wider and systemic effort to address problematic attitudes towards sexual violence, particularly in relation to previous reports, and to address VAWG at its route in social injustice and inequality.”