HAMPSHIRE’S police force has apologised and paid a Winchester rape victim £20,000 after admitting she had been treated wrongly.

The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was arrested by the force in 2012 when aged 17 on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and tried to kill herself as a result.

Her rapist was later convicted and jailed for five years and Hampshire Constabulary has apologised and vowed to ensure similar incidents do not happen again.

Police have reached an agreement with the woman after she began proceedings against them using the Human Rights Act.

She was arrested after reporting the attack but forensic tests on her clothes did not return a result.

Eventually the Crown Prosecution Service ordered new tests and her attacker was jailed in 2013.

Chief Superintendent David Powell, head of Prevention and Neighbourhoods, said: “Our initial assessment and handling of this case in 2012 was very poor and we are not proud of our initial response. We have already personally apologised to the victim and her mother; and I repeat here now that we are sorry for how we let her down.

“Once I became aware of what had happened, I immediately ordered a new investigation working very closely with the victim. By quickly taking these steps, we were able to provide the right investigative response with supportive and compassionate officers to obtain the evidence required which secured the prosecution and conviction of this offender. We are grateful that this victim gave us a second chance to put this investigation right and ensure this individual was punished. He is now serving a five year sentence and is on the sexual offenders register.

“We accept the way we initially treated this victim fell well below the standard we would expect. The initial officers involved did not treat this victim in a way that she or any other victim would deserve to be treated. We deeply regret this and we took action at the time by referring this case to our Professional Standards Department. As a result of this referral, one officer received a written warning for misconduct and ten officers have been given management action.

“We have already conducted a review of the failings of this case and one of the improvements we have made was implementing a specialist dedicated unit who received additional training in rape investigations and who work with vulnerable victims, providing support, advice and investigative expertise from the initial reporting right through to any criminal proceedings and beyond.

“We have changed our internal processes and any decision by an investigating officer to discontinue a rape investigation or release a suspect with no further action has to be agreed by an independent panel chaired by an Assistant Chief Constable. This demonstrates how seriously we have responded to this case and how seriously we take sexual offence investigations.

“I would like to reassure all victims of sexual assault that we do take you seriously. We do believe you, we appreciate how hard it is to come forward to report these offences, we do not judge you and we are committed to ensuring a professional and supportive response. We are doing everything to ensure we never have an initial response like this again.”