Andy Burnham’s reign as the Police Commissioner for GMP has come under heavy criticism after figures revealed a collapse in prosecutions for rape in Greater Manchester over the last five years.

The already low rates have more than halved between 2017 and 2020, and convictions from 2021 are even lower, pending a number of still open cases.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “My heart goes out to anyone who has gone through the trauma of not just this horrific crime, but the desperately difficult process of trying to get a conviction.

“This low prosecution rate reflects one of most serious failings of Andy Burnham’s time in charge of GMP. The force has been placed in special measures following repeated failures to support vulnerable victims, and its backlog on domestic violence reports, as well as 80,000 missing cases.

“GMP also abandoned its specialist rape and serious sexual offences unit (RASSO) in 2018, yet the evidence shows that this is one of the key measures that police forces should be introducing to support survivors.

“But this is not solely a failing at the local level – Boris Johnson’s failure to condemn misogyny as a crime, despite even hardline Tories such as Priti Patel calling for it – has set the tone for a consistent failure to deal with domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. This Tory Government has backtracked repeatedly on a whole series of promised reforms. Low prosecutions in Oldham match falls in the national rate – already desperately low – since 2015.

“While many individual officers work hard to do the right thing, this is a systemic failure from the top of Government and through the police force.

“All too often, the same story is heard, that the traumatic experience of trying to report the crime to someone who is untrained or unsympathetic is too much for the victims, and having to hand over private details – such as unlocked mobile phones which are taken away by the police – just adds to the pain and the sense of invasion.

“For this to change, we need consistency at every level of Government and policing to show survivors of rape that there is support; that they will be listened to; and that everything is being done to help them deal with that process.

“That is why, in Oldham, our group has successfully gained Council support for criminalising street harassment, for a domestic abuse register, for providing training and information in schools to combat violence against women and girls, and many more changes. That is why I have been working with groups such as Our Streets Now and Plan International to try and change the legislation to make street harassment and misogyny crimes.

“We need to see genuine change – not just platitudes from Andy Burnham – in the way that Greater Manchester Police works.

“A real Government would show survivors that it is on their side. It has not. Until that changes, too many more survivors of rape and abuse will not get justice.”