Unresolved: Kiwi victims of sexual violence deserve better

Jan Logie, left, has released a report revealing for every 100 reported sexual violence incidents, 31 made it to court, 11 resulted in a conviction and six in imprisonment. Photo / NZ Herald

In a file on my computer there is a folder called "rape".

I created it on May 25, 2017, the day I discovered an anomaly in our rape statistics which left me chilled to the bone - and led to a year-long investigation into the way police prosecute sexual violence in New Zealand.

The data showed that, despite more women coming forward to police to report sexual assault, and police believing more women's stories, fewer rapists were going to court.

These cases - usually not put forward for prosecution because of a lack of evidence - were officially labelled "unresolved".

There were, by our calculations, at least 14,000 of them since 1994, and - unbelievably given known improvements in police practice - climbing.

Each one of those cases isn't just a number. It represents a victim left in limbo, an attacker untried.

It took nine months to work out why the data looked like that - it turned out that for at least 20 years prior to 2014, police were incorrectly coding some sexual assaults as "no crime".

Victim advocate Louise Nicholas has previously spoken of the hard road sexual violence victims face in getting cases to court. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Where cases had limited evidence, or victims were intoxicated, or consent was unclear, instead of recording the incident as a "K6 - crime reported" police would instead label it "K3 - no offence disclosed" or "no crime".

Documents released by police to the Herald after Ombudsman intervention suggest the inappropriate use of the "no crime" code in upwards of 15 per cent of cases.

Not only did this distort crime statistics to seem as though fewer sexual assaults were being reported, but it kept the "unresolved" rate artificially low for years, because K3 cases disappear from official counts.

Worse, because the catch-all K3 code was also used for the small minority of fake claims, academics say it led some police officers to conflate the two totals, resulting in the incorrect belief that a huge proportion of women were liars, and not to be trusted.

A report released today by Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice Jan Logie shows that the horrific K3 practice is on the way out - to just 2 per cent of sexual violence victimisations this year.

And since our investigation was published, changes police have made to the way they investigate sexual assaults have seen a 34 per cent increase in the number of investigations resulting in court action.

However, the broader trend remains.

Our data showed as of 2016 up to 80 per cent of reported aggravated sexual assaults went unresolved. For the crime "male rapes female 16 and over", that number was even higher, at 85 per cent.

Police have made changes to the way they investigate sexual assault complaints, but victim advocates argue more needs to be done. Photo / File

The government report, named Attrition and progression: Reported sexual violence victimisations in the criminal justice system, analyses 23,739 sexual violence victimisations reported to police between July 2014 and June 2018.

It uses slightly different terminology and a broader definition of sexual violence but the pattern is there.

For every 100 sexual violence incidents reported to police, only 31 made it to court, 11 resulted in a conviction and six in imprisonment.

That puts the unresolved rate at at least 60 per cent - among the lowest resolution rates for any type of crime. Compare, for example, other types of physical assault - where only 24 per cent of offences were unresolved.

As Logie said when launching the report, it's not good enough.

Each one of those victims deserves better. Logie is trying to get there - even the commissioning of the report shows a new attitude towards improving the system for victims - but she cannot do it alone.

While the government can work on structural issues - the way courtrooms are run, prosecution guidelines, funding for victim support - it cannot change the deep societal attitudes about rape that led us to this point.

Our investigation found that time and time again women simply weren't respected when they told their stories - by police, by their friends, by their family. They were treated as though they asked for it, or deserved it - or worse, that they lied about it. Many of them didn't bother reporting it in the first place.

In that folder on my computer are dozens of their names. They came forward after our investigation to tell their stories.

Some we published, after getting access to their police files. Some we didn't. Some of them just wanted to be heard, and to be believed in a world that doesn't believe women.

And that's something - after seeing the numbers in black and white in this report - we can all help to improve.