New research by Dr Sarah Learmonth exposes troubling contradictions between the protections promised to rape survivors and how bail operates across the criminal justice system
Bail conditions are often presented as an essential safeguard for survivors of sexual violence. But what happens when those protections are poorly explained, inconsistently enforced or fail to reflect the very people they’re intended to protect?
A new briefing by Dr Sarah Learmonth, Bail as Protection in Rape Cases: Policy Promises versus Institutional Practice, analyses national criminal justice guidance and reviews published between 2018 and 2024 from the perspective of women subjected to rape. The briefing is taken from her recent PhD research which is the first to explore bail use from the perspective of victim-survivors of rape.
Her findings raise serious questions about whether the bail system is delivering the protection it promises.
Protection on paper, uncertainty in practice
The research identifies significant gaps between official policy and institutional practice.
Despite repeated commitments to prioritising survivors’ safety, the briefing highlights:
Limited consideration of individual circumstances: Bail conditions often rely on familiar restrictions, such as no contact or avoiding a survivor’s home, rather than a broader assessment of safety needs.
Poor communication: Survivors may not understand whether bail applies, what conditions are in place or how to report breaches.
Weak enforcement: Failures to monitor conditions, respond consistently to breaches and maintain protections can leave survivors exposed.
Fragmented accountability: Responsibility is spread across the police, CPS and courts, with no single authority accountable for bail outcomes.
Perhaps most concerning is the finding that bail remains absent or insufficiently addressed in several major criminal justice reviews, including the 2021 End-to-End Rape Review.
When survivors are left managing their own safety
One particularly troubling finding concerns the limited opportunities survivors have to influence decisions about their protection. Although police have a statutory duty to seek victims’ views on pre-charge bail conditions, the briefing identifies no equivalent ongoing requirement as cases progress.
For survivors navigating investigations and court proceedings that can last years, circumstances and safety needs may change significantly. Yet the systems responsible for their protection do not revisit those needs.
The research also highlights how survivors can be left uncertain about reporting breaches, while failures to report every incident may subsequently be used to question their credibility. The person subject to bail conditions is responsible for complying with them. It should never fall on survivors to manage enforcement failures.
What needs to change?
Dr Learmonth’s briefing identifies six areas for consideration, including better recording of bail decisions and breaches, clearer information for survivors, evidence-led bail conditions, improved enforcement and stronger accountability across criminal justice agencies.
It also calls for greater consistency between criminal bail conditions and civil protection orders, ensuring one form of protection does not undermine access to another.
These are practical questions that deserve serious attention from policymakers, criminal justice leaders and those responsible for safeguarding victims, the very institutions that present bail use as a sequential, victim-focused process delivering effective protection.
Lived experience must shape protection
At Make Yourself Heard, we believe protecting survivors requires more than policies that promise to put victims first. It requires listening to those navigating these processes, understanding where protections fail and ensuring that institutions are accountable for addressing those failures.
Dr Learmonth’s research makes an important contribution to that conversation, exposing gaps that risk becoming accepted features of a system rather than urgent problems to resolve.
Survivors should not have to become experts in bail procedures simply to understand whether they are protected. We thank Dr Sarah Learmonth for sharing her research with Make Yourself Heard and contributing to the wider conversation around survivor safety and criminal justice reform.
