news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/10430805.stm

We all know the real answer why WOMEN ARE NOT SAFE and CHILDREN ARE ATTACKED - which thankfully is not very often - but the POLICE never deal with it.

The "Saphire" and other unit teams spend 95% of their time chasing soft targets such as flashers ! and teachers and priests. With a success rate of around 5% in convictions - many of which are very unsafe because they have been achieved on the weight of numbers principle rather than the weight of evidence - which in most historic cases boils down to one person saying "They did it to me" and someone else saying "They did not" - that sort of case should NEVER go to court. There should be forensic evidence - witnesses from the time - medical evidence ( which is 99% likely to exist if someone has been raped or sexually abused - not least contraception or pregnancy )

When evidence does exist AS IN THIS SHOCKING STORY - the POLICE ignore the DNA evidence for FOUR YEARS - yes they wait FOUR years to test the suspects......ahem......smells of either rank incompetence or an intentional cover up for some reason.

If Saphire Units were businesses they would all be closed today on the back of this shocking news and replaced.

It is funny that when our football team loses we get calls to sack the manager - yet when there are up to 75 WOMEN who have been forcibly raped and their trust in life smashed - everyone accepts in the Police that the Saphire Units should continue........

Everyone involved should resign as a matter of principle.

We can cut these units in full knowledge that they make very little difference to the daily experience of Women on the streets of the UK.

Not Fit for Purpose. Why does the BBC etc give them such an easy ride as well ? surely the media should be examining the failure of these HIGH COST units where they get paid loads of money for basically inventing stories from 30 years ago !!! LOL !!! They should be called the JACKANORY UNIT. This case has exposed how good they are at REAL POLICE WORK - and the answer is a resounding - not very.

Totally agree BR,being the victim of such a biased police force is not fun.

I don't think the police, the government, the lobby groups, or the media really have any interest in protecting women and children from real, violent, sexual crime....no more than Victorians who spanked children for masturbating really wanted to stop them from going blind.

Feminists in Sweden have long since banned pornography on the grounds that it encourages rape - Sweden now has the highest rape figures in the whole of Europe and multiple times higher than in the 70's when it was the leading producer of porn and blonde women in Stockholm could actually walk alone after midnight without the certainty of being gang-raped.

The UK is the world's leader in 'child protection', and has the most extreme and draconian laws in place. And what do you know? The UK has far higher rates of child murder than other European countries, the worst bullying epidemic, the highest teen suicide rate, the greatest incidence of self-harm amongst children etc etc

Talking rationally and honestly about sex is about as easy as catching your own shadow.

well put Blacklit.

I find it very distressing that child abuse happens and cannot conceive how anyone can harm a child and that means mentally, physically, sexually and by neglect. But today society s obsession only with sexual abuse means all the others type-the majority just don't seem to matter.