Natalie Fleet MP: I won't report my rape
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you are raped in London today, you could be waiting until 2030 for a trial.
Justice secretary David Lammy has stated that 60 per cent of rape victims drop their cases whilst waiting for the trial. Rape Crisis estimates 1 in 6 women go to the police.
Oli Dugmore is joined by Labour MP Natalie Fleet, who has written for the New Statesman on the fight for justice for victims of rape.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman |
| 0:02.1 | If you're raped in London today, you could be waiting until 2030 for a trial. |
| 0:11.8 | Justice Secretary David Lamy has stated that 60% of rape victims drop their cases whilst waiting for the trial. |
| 0:18.6 | Rape crisis estimates one in six women go to the police. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm Olly Dougmore, and this is Daily Politics from The New Statesman. I'm joined today by Labor MP, Natalie Fleet, who's written for the new statesman on the fight for justice for victims of rape. Natalie, hello, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you? Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Really excited to have you here. Let's start with that statistic then about the frankly, shockingly long wait for a trial |
| 0:43.1 | that victims of rape face. I mean, first of all, how have we got to this point? How have we got to a point |
| 0:48.2 | where people could be waiting five years for justice? Absolutely. Chronic underinvestment. |
| 0:53.5 | It's not just the NHS and schools that we've |
| 0:57.9 | seen and all of our public services just be absolutely decimated by years of cut after cut |
| 1:05.0 | after cut. This is the real world impact. Do you know how many people have told me? God, why do you want to do that? |
| 1:11.6 | You must be mad. |
| 1:12.6 | And I tell them, why do you want to be an MP at all? |
| 1:15.3 | I tell them, because politics makes a difference. |
| 1:17.8 | And the decisions that are made in Westminster in this tiny bubble, |
| 1:23.1 | the same ones that are being debated now are the ones that have an impact up and down the country |
| 1:28.5 | and affect life after life. And I think that people forget that. I think that if you have a |
| 1:35.8 | level of entitlement that the last conservative government did, you think, you know, if you ever |
| 1:43.7 | needed justice, you would find a way of getting it, you know, if you ever needed justice, you |
| 1:44.9 | would find a way of getting it. You think that if you need an education, you would have your |
| 1:49.8 | children privately educated. If you needed healthcare, you would pay for it. They don't understand |
| 1:55.5 | what it's like to be that rape victim and to have to wait half a decade. That's if you're brave enough to speak up. |
| 2:04.5 | Now, these women are absolutely incredible and you know what? They're braver than me. Said to my son, |
... |
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