Campaign Win: #Keep Counselling Confidential

Today (12^th January 2026) the government has implemented new rules to stop police officers from routinely trawling rape survivors’ private counselling notes, following a successful campaign by the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), Rape Crisis England and Wales, Centre for Women’s Justice and Rights of Women.

Wrongful focus on victim credibility rather than the suspects’ actions

For too long, when a victim of rape reported the offence to the police, they were often put in the impossible position of being forced to choose between pursuing justice or healing from trauma due to their private counselling notes being shared with the police, prosecutors, defence and in the courtroom.

Therapy records are very rarely relevant to a case, but despite this, these records could be requested by police and prosecutors and scrutinised in court when a survivor disclosed the incident with her therapist.

Due to this privacy breach, many survivors opted out of having counselling altogether. Survivors who did continue with therapy ahead of their trial were often told they must not talk about what happened to them. Access to counselling is critically important in healing trauma, and this scenario has left many survivors without vital, life-saving support at a time when it is needed most.

Under the new rules set out in a new Victim Information Request Code of Practice, police requests for counselling notes must meet strict criteria of being necessary, proportionate, and relevant – i.e. where an investigating officer “has reason to believe that the information sought is likely to have substantial probative value”. Requests for counselling information must also be cleared at the Chief Inspector level – significantly raising the bar for these types of requests.

Andrea Simon, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“We’re delighted that from today, police officers will no longer be able to routinely access rape survivors’ private counselling notes,  following our campaign to keep counselling confidential. Counselling is a space to explore feelings, and access to it is critically important in healing from trauma.

We now need to see strong implementation of the new guidance so that it is followed by police forces across the country, as well as an information campaign to inform survivors and therapists of their new rights.”

A win for survivors’ rights

Our successful campaign to keep counselling confidential secured cross-party support and is a big win for survivors’ rights to privacy, justice and healing.

As part of our campaign, we called for the change in the law to include oversight from judges over the police and prosecutors to ensure they followed the new procedures. While this oversight will not be included in the new law, we welcome the government’s commitment to a review this part of the legislation after three years.

ENDS