Gender Based Violence: Prosecutions

The CPS’s focus on tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) is driving an increase in charges across a range of offences, including rape and domestic abuse-flagged offences.

The CPS's Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy for 2025-2030 aims to ensure that prosecutors have the right skills and tools to prosecute VAWG offences effectively. It sets out the approach the CPS is taking to improve casework quality, increase public confidence, and support the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls.

To improve the prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences, the CPS has delivered significant reforms, including the introduction of a National Operating Model for adult rape prosecution, strengthened joint working and governance with policing, updated prosecution guidance, and a Rape Action Plan focused on improving case quality and prosecutor capability.

The CPS has also introduced enhanced assurance activity through the Rape Case Strategy Improvement Programme to support high-quality and consistent legal decision-making. These measures are contributing to improved outcomes, with 3,754 suspects charged in adult rape-flagged cases in 2025 (the highest number since records began), alongside the highest ever volume of completed adult rape prosecutions.

Tackling VAWG demands coordinated action across government. The CPS works closely with policing and other criminal justice partners to strengthen the collective response to these offences and ensure that victims are protected. In collaboration with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and third sector partners, the CPS developed a national Domestic Abuse Joint Justice Plan (DA JJP) to strengthen the collective response to domestic abuse. Since the DA JJP launch in Q3 2024-25, referral volumes of DA flagged offences have seen quarter-on-quarter increases and the charge rate has remained above 80%.

Together with the Home Office and the NPCC, the CPS has hosted two national multi-agency ‘honour’-based abuse conferences and will host a further multi-agency conference on stalking on 10 September. These events bring together colleagues from across government, statutory partners, specialist organisations and those with lived experience to develop our understanding of and response to VAWG offending.

Joint protocols between the police and CPS help to establish a clear, shared understanding for police and prosecutors of how to recognise and respond to VAWG offending. The joint protocols on stalking, ‘honour’-based abuse and female genital mutilation (FGM) are being updated, to ensure they support the collective response to the evolving nature of these offences.

Effective training helps to ensure prosecutors are fully equipped to identify, charge and progress cases effectively, and refreshed training on strangulation or suffocation and ‘honour’-based abuse is currently in development. The CPS also recognises the growing role that technology plays in facilitating and amplifying VAWG offending, and a dedicated Technology-Facilitated VAWG Action Plan is being developed to strengthen the CPS response to this evolving form of offending (with publication expected by the end of the year).