Three-quarters of rape survivors say police response damaged their mental health

Home Office-funded survey exposes failures over serious sexual crimes by officers in England and Wales

The full extent of the trauma rape survivors experience as a direct result of their interaction with police has been shown for the first time in a damning official survey.

Three-quarters of respondents to the largest ever survey of rape and sexual assault survivors in England and Wales said their mental health was damaged as a direct result of what police did, or failed to do, in their case", according to researchers.