Sexual Offences

Channel 4 reported that the government is rolling out specialist courts to deal with rape and other sexual offences in England and Wales as part of efforts to tackle the backlog in cases. Under the plans, Channel 4 said special rooms would be created in Crown courts where alleged victims could give evidence via video link and would be given separate spaces away from defendants. Channel 4 also reported that Andy Burnham said survivors had been let down by the justice system for too long. 5 reported that specialist courts for rape and other sexual offences will be introduced across England and Wales over the next two years. Each Crown Court will have at least one courtroom set up to hear such cases, according to 5, along with private entrances and waiting rooms for victims to keep them away from defendants.

This is a cross-channel consensus summary, not an objective account. Consensus can be uniformly wrong, or omit what only one channel covered.