The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has charged more rape-flagged suspects than at any point in the last two decades, with increases in cases referred by police, charged by prosecutors and completed in the courts, new data shows.

All crime

Overall, completed prosecutions across all crime types rose 7.3% from this time last year to 125,171.

The CPS is now charging more people with criminal offences than ever before, despite a significant increase in the number of cases referred to the CPS by the police which has outpaced an increase in prosecutor numbers.

Large-scale programmes of improvement have driven change across the organisation, resulting in higher productivity. With a small increase in resources, prosecutors have adapted to deliver improved outcomes for victims, whilst maintaining convictions in 4 out of 5 cases.

Continued work to bring stronger cases, tackle misconceptions and work from the outset with the police has also meant more cases referred to the CPS for a legal decision are now charged. Over the past year, the CPS has seen continued growth in the overall number of cases it handles, reflecting increasing demand across the criminal justice system.

Rape-flagged cases

Across the last financial year, prosecutors charged nearly four in five rape flagged cases referred by police, the highest rate on record, meaning more of these cases are progressing through the courts as volumes continue to rise.

Siobhan Blake, National CPS lead for Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO), said: “Victims of rape and serious sexual offences deserve a criminal justice system which will use every tool at its disposal to bring offenders of these abhorrent crimes to justice.

“I hope that by seeing how many cases our prosecutors charge from cases the police pass to us gives survivors the confidence they need to seek a justice outcome.

“Those who are questioning whether to come forward, please know we will be here to listen, no matter how long has passed, and to support you if you choose this route.”

The CPS reports a rise in rape-flagged cases, where both referrals from police and the number of cases charged have reached their highest levels to date in the current reporting methods

The data marks a continued increase of charges and prosecutions of these types of cases in the past five years, reflecting significant work into improving rape prosecutions including working under the National Operating Model for adult rape – putting the actions of the suspect first.

Prosecutors also published research into rape misconceptions and assumptions with the charity Equally Ours, improving how they challenge these through cases to make sure more cases get to court.

Last year, the CPS launched its 2025-2030 Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy to continue improvements in delivering justice, including commitments to better understanding and implementing learnings around the overlap of VAWG crime types, such as domestic abuse cases which also include sexual offences.

A rape-flagged case is where it contains or relates to a charge of rape, this may include cases where a rape offence is not charged or proceeded with. Prosecutors must manually ‘flag’ a case for it to be included in this data.

In the past year, the CPS has received over 9,500 cases from the police which have been rape-flagged. That accounts for nearly one in 25 overall cases sent to the CPS by the police.

Of these, over 5,600 resulted in a charge being brought – nearly four in five where the CPS makes a legal decision.

2,900 cases in the same time period resulted in a conviction.

This data release also records the highest number of completed prosecutions of rape-flagged cases in the past decade – meaning more justice delivered for victims.

This comes as the CPS recently announced significant updates to RASSO prosecution guidance, including encouraging prosecutors to use rape suspects’ history of past misconduct and abuse in trials to build the strongest possible cases.

Hate Crime

At a time of heightened public concern about hate crime, the CPS’s latest data also found that convictions for this crime type had risen quarter on quarter, reaching 86.6% in Q4 25/26. The percentage of cases where the CPS applied for and was granted a sentencing uplift in hate crime was also at over 80% for the fourth consecutive quarter, including in 84.1% of religiously aggravated flagged cases.