Juries convict defendants for rape more often than acquit

Once a rape case reaches court, juries in England and Wales are more likely to convict than acquit a defendant, and this has been the case for at least 15 years, according to a large-scale analysis of all jury verdicts by UCL's Professor Cheryl Thomas. The paper also found that the jury conviction rate for rape is increasing alongside an increase in jury verdicts in rape cases. Despite rape being one of the most high-profile issues in the UK justice system today, until this study there has not been reliable information for over a decade on how often juries convict defendants charged with rape in England and Wales. The research , published in the Criminal Law Review , examined all charges, pleas and jury verdicts for all defendants in the Crown Court in England and Wales over a 15-year period from 2007-2021. The study analysed almost six million charges against defendants and includes every single verdict reached by a jury on rape charges in this period (68,863 jury verdicts by deliberation). In 2021, the most recent year with full data, the jury conviction rate for all rape charges was 75%, up from 55% in 2007. The finding that juries convict more often than they acquit defendants in rape cases was also true regardless of the age or sex of the rape complainant.