The Crown Prosecution Service has just launched a consultation on guidance governing when individuals who retract allegations of rape or domestic violence should face prosecution.

The interim guidance takes immediate effect.

It follows a number of high-profile cases, in which women who have been raped have been prosecuted and imprisoned after retracting their complaints due to fear or intimidation.

Most notoriously, in December last year, a woman was prosecuted for perverting the course of justice and sentenced to eight months in prison after she retracted allegations of being raped by her husband.

She was prosecuted not because her original allegation was false – Dyfed-Powys Police believed she was raped - but because her retraction was false. That is to say she was prosecuted for falsely withdrawing a truthful allegation of rape.

It was left to the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge to demonstrate to the media and world at large that the English justice system is not as misogynistic and absurd as it appeared. He released her after she had served 18 days.

Despite the successful appeal, the woman, who the police accepted was a victim of prolonged domestic abuse and rape, has a criminal conviction recorded against her, while the perpetrator has gone unpunished and remains at large.

The fact that this woman, and others like her, who are so terrified and intimidated by their abusers, that they feel unable to proceed with cases against them, was ever prosecuted is in the first place beggers belief.

And it can do nothing to encourage the majority of rape victims, both male and female, who do not report their attacks, to come forward.

Following the example above, the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said his approval would have to be sort in all prosecutions for retracting rape allegations.

This guidance is intended to make it less likely that victims who have withdrawn allegations due to intimidation are not prosecuted, while ensuring those who make malicious allegations against innocent people are pursued.

But why was the guidance necessary in the first place? Why has the CPS made decisions in the past to prosecute people intimidated into dropping these cases? Wouldn’t common sense and an ordinary sense of humanity and compassion tell them it was not just?

The fact that the guidance was needed perhaps demonstrates that a greater attitudinal change within the police and CPS is required. And it will probably take more than guidance to achieve that.