By Kristy Johnson
Numbers of unassigned rape cases (click here) are climbing rapidly, prompting criticism police are under-resourcing investigations into sexual violence.
The monthly backlog of adult sexual assault files waiting to be assigned to a detective has risen by 78 per cent in two years, to an average 180 each month in the last three months.
The Northland region alone had 45 sexual assault cases unassigned in September, the highest of any police district, and twice that of the next-highest area, Central.
At the same time, official data shows, reporting rates for sexual assault have remained almost unchanged....
By Anna Leask
Every day, (click here) the woman sat at the back of the courtroom, quiet and for the most part, alone.
Immaculately dressed, she listened intently to the evidence she was allowed in court for - and sat outside quietly reading her book when the room was closed for the victims, and during lunch breaks.
Most assumed she was connected to a victim, a mother or grandmother perhaps.
Or maybe she was just one of those law-loving folk who liked sitting through High Court trials.
The truth?
*Sarah was Colin Jack Mitchell's first victim, a woman he had raped when he was just 15, in her own home, in the middle of the day after following her home from her local dairy.
More than 45 years had passed since that - and it's likely Mitchell had no idea who she was, or even that she was at court.
But Sarah knew exactly who, and what, he was.
"I was there to honour and support the women who gave evidence, and also to honour myself," she said.
"I needed to confront him."
Mitchell pleaded guilty to raping Sarah and was jailed for five years.
But the Herald has been unable to report on that case until now because - for reasons not stated on the court file - he was granted permanent name suppression.
After he was released from prison Mitchell went on to rape again, twice - in 1984 and 1992.
It's likely he would have raped a third woman at an isolated West Auckland quarry in 2017 had she not managed to get away.
In a bid to tell the full story about Mitchell - a predatory sexual deviant who targets vulnerable young women walking on their own - the Herald applied to the Court of Appeal to have the name suppression around his earliest offending as an adult lifted....
