OF COURSE it is welcome that the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, is to take a more robust approach to rape and sex offences. He is to publish a map of “hotspots” for women and girls and to use a common sense technique — the Cambridge Harm Index, which measures crime in terms of seriousness rather than just number — to identify which of the 35,000 individuals reported each year for offences against women and girls are most dangerous to the public. Of these, the force will focus on the 100 worst.
Sir Mark calls the approach “proactive”, and certainly it seems likely to yield results. But it is not just a matter of identifying and pursuing the perpetrators, important though that is. The problem with tackling sex crimes goes much further into the criminal justice system — namely, the scandalous delays in getting a case to court.
In London, there is an average delay of 425 days between charge and a case concluding in the crown court, compared with 230 days in 2014. This is a formidable deterrent to anyone considering going to the police to report a sexual assault. It is unfair both on victims and on those wrongly accused of a crime, whose lives are on hold pending the case. Besides, who other than a remarkable few can really remember exactly what happened 14 months previously?
This paper welcomes the new initiative. But until the delays in the court system are addressed (and not just for rape) women will continue to be unwilling to report crime.
Oxford Street revival
WITHIN living memory, Oxford Street was rather a classy shopping destination. Further back, it was home to a theatre and music hall. Its present incarnation, dotted with dispiriting tourist tat outlets and even more dispiriting American candy stores, is very far from that old vitality.
Today a public consultation opens on Westminster council’s proposals to rejuvenate this great London axis. It includes wider pavements, more crossings and trees. These, rather than impractical plans for pedestrianisation, could bring the Oxford Street mile back to life. The consultation closes at the end of August — let’s join it.
West End Final
THE brilliance of this paper’s newsletter — the West End Final, edited and written by Jack Kessler — was acknowledged last night when it won the Best News Newsletter category at the Publisher Newsletter Awards out of 150 contenders. Readers who have not already signed up to receive the newsletter can easily do so; a treat awaits them at standard.co.uk/newsletters.
