Bedfordshire women are suffering at the hands of a postcode lottery when it comes to rape convictions, a leading campaign group has claimed.

The Fawcett Society, which works to close inequality gaps between women and men, has obtained figures from the Government which reveal huge deficiencies in police responses to rape in many parts of the UK.

In some areas, women who report rape are almost five times less likely to achieve a conviction than in others.

The worst performing county was Leicestershire, where less than one in 35 women who reported a rape in 2006 secured a conviction, just 2.8 per cent.

The best was Cleveland, where one in seven reported rapes were convicted that year, 13.2 per cent.

Bedfordshire was among the lowest-ranked, securing convictions in just 3.2 per cent of rape cases.

Our county was among 18 of 43 where conviction rates were found to have dropped dramatically in 2006 since the previous survey in 2004.

Figures obtained from the Ministry of Justice showed that nationally 6.1 per cent of rape investigations resulted in a successful conviction in 2006, up by 0.85 per cent since 2004.

But Bedfordshire's success fell by by 5.12 per cent from 8.33 per cent two years previously.

In 2004, 156 offences of rape were reported to police in Bedfordshire. Of those, 35 cases reached court and 13 convictions were secured.

In 2006, again, 156 rape offences were reported to the county force. But then just 19 cases reached court and only five convictions were secured.

Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, said: "These disturbing figures reveal that women face a postcode lottery when reporting rape to the police. It is entirely unacceptable that the standard of service rape victims receive is dependent on where they live.

"Even more worryingly, in many areas of the country the conviction rate has fallen dramatically since 2004. The Government must act now to ensure that all women who experience this awful crime receive a sensitive and effective service from police.

"It is a national scandal that thousands of victims have no access to justice, and receive unreliable and ineffectual responses when reporting rape. In many cases women face a culture of disbelief and, even more frequently, delayed responses lead to the loss of vital evidence. Women deserve so much better than this.

"We are calling on the Home Secretary to end the postcode lottery faced by victims of sexual violence by ensuring that every case of rape is properly investigated.

"The Government needs to drive cultural change within the criminal justice system, to ensure that rape is given an high priority by every police force in the country and to invest in a national network of rape crisis centres."

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