Specialist rape courts to be rolled out across the country

This week (21^st September 2026) the government announced new specialist courts for victims of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), to be rolled out across every Crown Court in England and Wales.

This announcement was delivered as part of a package of proposals for RASSO cases, and follows the Prime Minister’s recent decision to accelerate the rollout of RASSO teams in all police forces to December 2027, along with new funding for the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) has long campaigned with partners to improve the criminal justice response to rape, including our joint Decriminalisation of Rape report in 2021 and our legal action against the Crown Prosecution Service.

These new measures are all welcome steps, and follow our successful campaigns for government to roll out independent legal advice nationally, restrict victims’ previous experiences of sexual violence from being used against them in court, and introduce greater restrictions on the disclosure of survivors’ counselling records. We know that survivors’ experiences of the criminal justice system is untenable, and has devastating effects, as recently highlighted in the case of Simon Levy.

New RASSO proposals

The government says that every Crown Court in England and Wales will have at least one courtroom especially set up to hear rape and serious sexual offence cases over the next two years, helping to reduce the backlog in cases that is causing rape survivors severe delays to their case being heard in court.

The package of proposals also include:

• Private entrances and waiting rooms for rape survivors, as well as facilities equipped for survivors to pre-record their evidence and be able to observe a perpetrator’s sentencing remotely
• Trauma-informed training for all court staff
• A trial to give victims of sex offences a single point of contact to ensure their needs are met during the court process
• A new Rape Justice Taskforce aiming to tackle the rising rate of postponed rape trials and confront the myths that cause victims to withdraw from their own cases

The government has also announced that rape and serious sexual offence trials will be given a fixed date as opposed to being placed on floating lists where they can be moved at short notice and delayed by many months. Currently, rape survivors often find themselves left in limbo while trials are delayed, often for years. No other crime type faces court delays to this extent.

In 2025, rape cases took an average of 424 days to complete once they reached the Crown Court, with many victims forced out of the justice process before their case was heard.

Beyond these reforms, we are calling for greater ambition and investment in the prevention of sexual violence and other forms of VAWG, to end this cycle of harm and stop women and girls from having to confront the criminal justice system after the very worst has occurred, as highlighted in our letter to the Education Secretary.

Janaya Walker, Interim Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“This package of measures is a welcome step for victims and survivors of rape and serious sexual offences. We have long known that the criminal justice system is stacked against victims and survivors of rape, who are so often faced with awful treatment and delays in the pursuit of justice. 

Alongside Rape Crisis England & Wales, Imkaan, Centre for Women’s Justice and Rights of Women, we will continue to advocate for improvements for survivors building on today’s announcements. This includes survivors facing lengthy delays,  poor communication about decision making in their case, as well as harmful practices in the court room. 

At the same time, the Labour government must accompany such measures with more ambitious commitments to address these problems at the root – specifically, how it intends to prevent yet more generations of women and girls from being subjected to sexual violence and abuse.”

ENDS