Police to pay rape victim £20,000 for wrongful arrest

A rape victim has been awarded £20,000 in compensation after Hampshire police failed to investigate her complaint and arrested her for perverting the course of justice.

The 17-year old from Winchester was raped in 2012 after a night out with friends and immediately reported the attack to the police. She told detectives there was forensic evidence on her t-shirt that would implicate her attacker, but they failed to carry out a full test.

Instead, she was later arrested on suspicion of lying to police and released on bail. "I was horrified," the victim's mother told the BBC. "A woman comes forward and tells the police authority she has been raped: You expect them to do everything they can to put the rapist away."

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The victim's mental health deteriorated rapidly after her arrest and she began self-harming and attempted suicide twice, "because she couldn't cope" with not being believed, said her mother.

While she was on bail, the Crown Prosecution Service ordered police to re-test the t-shirt and a DNA match was eventually made to her attacker. Liam Ford was convicted of rape and sentenced to five years in prison and the victim began proceedings against the force under the Human Rights Act.

Hampshire police has admitted that its initial handling of the case was "poor" and has apologised to the victim. Following an in internal investigation, three police officers resigned or retired and a fourth was given a written warning.

"I'm glad that they have admitted that they were wrong," said her mother. "But if it can happen to my daughter, how many more can it happen to?"

Such cases are "very common" and are a "shocking reflection" of how rape and domestic violence are handled in Britain, said the campaign group Women Against Rape. "We are still seeing these appalling cases, time after time, where actually the victim is turned into a suspect," she said.

This is not the first time a police department has paid compensation to a rape victim over wrongdoing. In 2012, Scotland Yard's specialist rape unit paid £15,000 to a victim after failing to investigate her case properly and Somerset and Avon police were ordered to pay £7,500 to a victim after losing crucial video evidence last year.