Sexual Offences: Law Reporting
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what communications and outreach strategies the Department is implementing to inform victims, legal representatives, and support organisations about their eligibility and the future availability of free sentencing-remarks transcripts, in light of the 498 applications processed under the Rape and Sexual Offences pilot.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones
In May 2025, we announced that we would continue to enable victims of rape and other sexual offences, whose cases were heard in the Crown Court, to apply for free transcripts of the sentencing remarks in their case, on an on-going basis. This followed a one-year pilot which ran from May 2024.
We have taken the following steps to promote the provision:
Providing the Witness Service, whose role is to support victims and witnesses at court, with an information sheet on the scheme to distribute to any eligible victims
Publishing a dedicated webpage on Gov.uk
Sharing information on the scheme at a forum with over 70 national and local stakeholders who work with or represent victims.
And creating social media posts on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn.
Verbatim has judged this answer against the question that was actually asked — answered, partly answered, or evaded. Sign in to see the verdict →