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Tieng Anh Vui
Final guidance on the prosecution of cases involving child sexual abuse is being published later.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said it represented the biggest shift in attitude across the criminal justice system "for a generation".
Under the guidelines, prosecutors are told to focus on the credibility of allegations, not on whether victims make good witnesses.
All suspects will also be investigated to see if they possess indecent images.
The guidelines cover how victims should be treated and how a case should be built and presented in court.
Preconceptions challenged
A list of "myths and stereotypes" about behaviour previously thought to negatively impact the credibility of young victims has also been included, so the use of such preconceptions can be challenged in court by prosecutors.
The list includes inconsistencies in what the victim remembers and whether they were drunk or wearing revealing clothes.
A joint protocol for information sharing in child sexual abuse cases has also been published alongside the guidelines, in which police and prosecutors are expected to share information with social services, schools and family courts.
Common 'myths and stereotypes'
- The victim invited sex by the way they dressed or acted
- The victim used alcohol or drugs and was therefore sexually available
- The victim didn't scream, fight or protest so must have been consenting
- The victim didn't complain immediately, so it can't have been a sexual assault
- The victim is in a relationship with the alleged offender and is therefore a willing sexual partner
- A victim should remember events consistently
- Children can consent to their own sexual exploitation
- Child sexual abuse is only a problem in certain ethnic/cultural communities
- Only girls and young women are victims of child sexual abuse
- Children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are not abused
- There will be physical evidence of abuse
The publishing of the final guidelines follows a three-month public consultation. They will come into force in England and Wales on 1 January 2014.
Changes were sought after there were complaints that too many cases had been dropped before trial because of fears that the allegations would not stand up to scrutiny.
One of the most serious recent prosecutions of sex abuse and street grooming - in which 10 men were convicted - was initially shelved because of doubts over the credibility of the victims as witnesses.
TV and radio presenter Jimmy Savile was not prosecuted when he was alive and, more recently, a row erupted after a prosecutor called a 13-year-old victim "predatory".
Mr Starmer said: "For too long, child sexual abuse cases have been plagued by myths about how 'real' victims behave which simply do not withstand scrutiny.
"The days of the model victim are over. From now on these cases will be investigated and prosecuted differently, whatever the vulnerabilities of the victim."
Indecent images
Mr Starmer said that because the guidelines were the result of discussions with judges, the police, experts, victims' representatives and the government, they would "stand the test of time".
He said that because "possession of indecent images of children has been found to be a common feature" of child sexual abuse cases the police would now investigate it in every case of child sexual abuse.
The guidelines will also highlight a number of ways victims of abuse can be manipulated and blackmailed to keep quiet, which include threats to publish indecent images or implicating victims in other offences.
They also seek to raise awareness of how victims in some ethnic communities are controlled by offenders who might use notions of "honour" or "shame" to deter them.
Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said it was not clear how much of the guidance would actually get used in practice.
"These proposals are a welcome effort to correct the over-cautious stance the CPS took in the Jimmy Savile and street-grooming cases," she said.
"However, the guidance contains a lot more 'shoulds' than 'musts' which makes it far from certain how much of this will actually get implemented."
The NSPCC's Alan Wardle said the changes "will start to make a positive difference for child sex abuse prosecutions which in the past have been dogged by difficulties".
"The trauma of suffering sexual abuse should not be followed by a legal process that becomes a trial for the young victim," he said.
But Mr Wardle added that the new guidelines did not represent "the complete solution".
The Deputy Children's Commissioner for England, Sue Berelowitz, said the CPS had "worked hard to improve the experiences of child witnesses and increase the likelihood of securing convictions by ensuring that judges and juries better understand the psychological and emotional impact on victims of their appalling experiences".
The deputy director of strategy at the children's charity Barnardo's, Alison Worsley, also welcomed the new guidelines.
"A wholesale shift in attitudes is required throughout the legal system when dealing with the child victims of sexual exploitation and these guidelines are a step towards achieving that," she said.
"We must make sure we always listen to what children are telling us, often through their behaviour rather than just words, and consign stereotypes and myths to the history books.
"The challenge comes now for police and prosecutors to live up to the word of the guidance and make the crucial changes needed in practice."
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