Living in Limbo: Our second report on the traumatisation of rape and sexual abuse survivors in the Crown Court backlog.
Rape Crisis England and Wales (RCEW) have published a new report, Living in Limbo, presenting new data, lived experience, and frontline insight on devastating impact of the Crown Court backlog on victims and survivors of rape and sexual abuse.
Many sexual offence cases continue to be listed as ‘floating’ trials - a trial not allocated to a specific court or judge, but which may be heard in any court in the same court centre on a specific day or within a period of time. Cases are listed in this way so that if another case listed for that day collapses, and a courtroom and judge become available, then there is a case ready to proceed. Just 38% of floating trials go ahead on the date listed. The other 72% of cases see survivors turned away on the day, and asked to come back months, even years, in the future.
“On average, adult survivors of rape are forced to wait 499 days before their trial is heard in court. This is significantly longer than other types of crime where people wait an average 284 days. But we know that for many survivors, the wait is much longer, on top of their previous wait for a police investigation.”
We are calling on this government to promise an end to listing rape and sexual offence trials as floating trials. Sexual abuse and rape is already incredibly traumatising and reporting these crimes already takes so much bravery.
Key findings:
- 13,238 - The number of sexual offence cases awaiting trial in the Crown Court - a 66% increase since we finalised our last report, Breaking Point, in 2022.
- Over 4,000 of these cases are adult rape cases – a 117% increase since 2022.
- 17% of all outstanding cases in the Crown Court are sexual offences.
- It takes 499 days for the Crown Court to hear the trial when a defendant has not been remanded into custody (compared to the average 284 day wait experienced by parties in trials for all other offences).
- 1,074 adult rape cases had been outstanding for a year or more, at the end of Q1 2025
- 1 in 3 rape trials are postponed at least once, often on the day of trial. In 2015 this figure was 1 in 10. Some survivors see their trials postponed more than six times.
Anyone who is the target of crime will feel the impact of court delays, but the consequences of the backlogs is particularly severe for survivors of sexual abuse and their families.
“The longer I waited for my trial meant that there was an increased risk of running into my abuser while I was out in my community, which happened in the summer.” – Matilda, survivor of sexual violence.
Survivors deserve dignity and respect and to know when they will have their day in court. That is a truth that all of us can speak to.
We ask you to stand firm in solidarity with our movement, Rape Crisis centres across England and Wales, and the victims and survivors that we support.
Maxime Rowson, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, says:
“Sexual abuse and rape can be incredibly traumatising offences. Many survivors seek justice through the criminal courts because they want to protect others from what happened to them. It should not be their responsibility, but where survivors choose to pursue a criminal justice outcome, the system must be set up to make that as easy as possible.
But many survivors are forced to drop out of the process entirely for their wellbeing and mental health. Those that stick with the criminal justice system face delays and frequent last minute postponements and tell us that their experience of the system is worse than the abuse they endured.
We need to see serious investment in the Crown Court system overall and long-term financial support for specialised sexual abuse services. But our asks in this report are not all financial. There are serious flaws within the criminal justice system which can be easily fixed to improve the experience of survivors, for example putting an end to floating trials which lead to repeated delays.
We cannot hope to reduce violence and abuse against women and girls unless our justice system is fit for purpose.”