Detection of serious sexual assaults up by 5% and rising

This grading is inaccurate. The HMIC acknowledge in their commentary recent performance improvements, but this is not captured in the grading.

In fact, as the latest statistics show, we have seen significant progress.

Mar-09	Sep-09	Dec-09	Jan-10
22%	24%	25.50%	27%

"A multi-agency specialist group led by a chief officer provides a critical overview of serious sexual assault and rape investigation cases."

"There are early signs that performance is improving around the number of cases being solved."

"The Bridge Sexual Assault and Referrall Centre (SARC) is making a significant contribution to victim focussed investigations."

"A new team dedicated to investigating serious sexual assault and rape has been launched in Bristol. This initiative is part of the BCUs drive to improve the service to victims of sexual violence and bring more offenders to justice."

The past year has seen a clear improvement in the number of serious sexual assaults we detect across the force. We now detect 27 per cent of all crimes reported, which represents an increase of five per cent in just one year.

In Bristol, the launch of Operation Bluestone, a team of officers dedicated to investigating incidents of rape and serious sexual assault, has increased the number of rapes detected by ten per cent and the number of serious sexual assaults detected by seven per cent: that is a huge success for an operation which was only launched six months ago.

In 2009 operation Bluestone dealt with a victim of rape who had been through a horrific ordeal. She was subjected to a vicious rape and assault and reported it instantly to the police.

At present this case is on the horizon of Crown Court after an investigation led by the dedicated team identified the offender leading to his arrest and charge to court.

Despite going through this the victim has remained positive and has nothing but praise for the officers who dealt with her. She said: "In the circumstances I could not have asked for better service from the police. I was always confident they would take me seriously and investigate fully in order to catch the man who did this to me, but never did I expect the level of support that I have received.

"Throughout the investigation the officers have helped me and still are checking on me twice weekly to make sure I'm happy before this goes to court.

"I reported the incident to police as I realised that this could happen to someone else and I did not want that. I couldn't have done this without them. Operation Bluestone are an asset to Avon and Somerset Police. I have nothing but praise for them."