CPS Launches Five-Year Plan to Prosecute the Full Pattern of Violence Against Women and Girls

Overview

• CPS data from 2020–2025 shows extensive overlap between offences, including about 35% of rape charges linked to domestic abuse and very high links across strangulation (92.4%), image-based abuse (85.6%), stalking (82.8%) and harassment (69.4%).
• The 2025–2030 strategy commits prosecutors to embed academic research, revise guidance and expand training across areas such as stalking, forced marriage, honour-based abuse and FGM, with a new stalking action plan.
• The CPS will extend victim-focused measures including pre-trial meetings for adult sexual offence victims, video guides to special measures, Victim Service Standards, piloted victim liaison officers and enhanced support for high-risk domestic abuse cases.
• Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson says cases will be built to show the totality of offending so courts can sentence appropriately and to reflect the layered nature of abuse.
• Leaders acknowledge serious delays from a record crown court backlog of more than 78,000 cases, as the CPS positions its reforms within the government’s goal to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.