A charity specialising in supporting survivors of child sexual abuse has asked for “urgent answers” after it was revealed that tens of defendants had their cases dropped due to “missing evidence”.

A total of 465 of Hampshire’s prosecutions collapsed between October 2022 and September 2024 due to the “E72” missing evidence category, 22 of which were defendants facing sexual offences.

But since the data was revealed, charity One in Four has said that “one would expect the storage and protection of valuable evidence” to be of “the highest priority”.

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A spokesperson for One in Four said: “It's surely the most basic requirement within an investigative process as evidence is key in all cases.

“It's shocking and we need urgent answers to retain any kind of confidence for victim/survivors within the process which is already at a very low level.”

A spokesperson for the charity said that “human error will always exist”, but “thoughts of negligence and systemic failure cannot be ignored” when so many defendants were dropped for the reason.

Speaking previously to the Echo, a spokesperson for Hampshire police clarified that the E72 category is not simply about “lost” evidence, but covers evidence that is not available or is missing.

This can include statements, expert witnesses not being found, medical records not being available and forensic evidence, which could have been destroyed by a third party.

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A spokesperson for Hampshire police said: “Our investigation teams work incredibly hard to get justice for our victims and work closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure we have done everything we can to get a case to the point where an offender is charged.

“Getting to this point relies on high-quality investigations and often pain-staking work to secure and analyse all available evidence to ensure the strongest case is put before a jury.

“As the data shows, this does happen with a very small percentage of our cases and when it does, we work with the CPS to see what can be done to overcome these issues and if necessary, what action can be taken to prevent it happening again.”

A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “When evidential issues occur in a case, the CPS will raise this with police for any action deemed necessary and we will work together to ensure these are resolved wherever possible.”