Last autumn, at a meeting with senior officers from the Metropolitan Police, I was told that more than 2,000 rapes and serious sexual offences had already been reported in London for 2014. One of the officers present said he believed that only a fifth of rapes are actually reported to the police; women’s organisations, who see many victims who dare not report their experience, think that the number is much higher. Few people working at a senior level in the criminal justice system believe that the number of convictions for rape – 2,333 in the year 2012-2013 – bears much relation to the actual incidence in this country.