'You can't have been raped, you were wearing Spanx'

A victim of rape was told that her choice of underwear was one reason the case against her attacker was dropped, as figures show an alarming drop in the number of sex attackers prosecuted.Suzanne (not her real name) was raped by her partner in December 2012 but was told that her Spanx - a type of undergarment that shapes the body - were partly to blame for the case being dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).Her story emerges as it is revealed that there were 129 fewer rape suspects convicted of any offence in 2013 than in the year before, while the numbers of rape cases referred to prosecutors for charging has fallen by more than a third since 2011 - despite a rise in offences recorded by police.Suzanne said she was in a sexual relationship with her partner and was planning for him to stay the night but he became aggressive as the evening wore on.They argued in his car outside her house and when she went inside he followed her into the house and raped her. He left immediately afterwards.Suzannah was shocked to receive a letter from a CPS lawyer in September 2013 which said: ‘I have taken into account all the surrounding circumstances, including the exchange of text messages between you before and after the incident.‘I have also considered your account of the incident, particularly bearing in mind the type of underwear that you had on at the time,’ the letter added.‘I was wearing Spanx control pants,’  Suzanne said. ‘They were about this big.’ She measures out a foot with her hands. ‘I don’t know what he was thinking.’‘We have certainly seen some indication that cases which we thought should have gone through (to charge) didn’t go through,’ she said.She added: ‘There is best practice out there. It’s just that not everyone is doing it.’The fall in prosecutions took place despite a ‘Rape Scrutiny Panel’ that was set up last year by the CPS and police chiefs to advise police and prosecutors.Marianne Hester, professor of gender and violence at Bristol University, said there is an abiding impression that those reporting attacks ‘are just making it up’.She said: ‘Most cases do not end up in court, and this is not because the rape did not happen but because the police may not be vigorous enough in pursuing evidence, or because victims may be deemed too fragile to cope in the court setting or because they are seen as the 'wrong' kind of victim if they have been raped before.’Mary Mason, director of Solace Woman’s Aid, added: ‘We will not see convictions improve significantly and consistently until there is a change to the institutional mindset which blames the victim for being raped.’Academic research has shown that just 12 per cent of rapes recorded by police result in a conviction of any kind – and only around six per cent end in a conviction.It is believed that part of the problem is the guidelines produced by the Rape Scrutiny Panel have been interpreted differently by different police forces.Ms Saunders, who sits on the panel, said: ‘You have some places where within 24 hours of a rape being reported to the police there is a referral to the CPS.'In others [the guidance] has been interpreted as “send the file through when we are ready for charging” – a much later stage.’‘The Rape Scrutiny Panel is now looking at how we get the numbers going through as well as the quality going up.'(dailymail.co.uk)BakuDaily.Az