On 22nd January 2026, barristers, members of the judiciary, academics, and guests gathered in the City Law School to celebrate the launch of the seventh edition of Rook and Ward on Sexual Offences Law & Practice.
HHJ Peter Rook KC declined to address the audience in the larger setting of the Law School lecture theatre, opting instead for a more modest symposium in the atrium. His and Robert Ward KC CBE’s achievement, however, was anything but modest. Their 2,200-page text is the definitive reference book for judges, prosecutors, and defence advocates involved in Rape and Serious Sexual Offence (RASSO) trials.
Rook & Ward’s customer list confirms its extraordinary reach: copies adorn desks across England and Wales in chambers, law firms, universities, and the Ministry of Justice, but also in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Caribbean, and the Channel Islands.
The Deputy Dean, Professor Mark O’Brien opened the event, followed by addresses from HHJ Peter Rook KC, Robert Ward KC, Dr Cassandra Wiener, and Professor Katrin Hohl OBE.
Dr Cassandra Wiener argued that the work’s enduring authority lies not only in its comprehensive scope, but also in its distinctive voice – progressive, critical, and humane – which is constantly responsive to social and legal change. HHJ Patricia Lynch KC once described it as “the Bible for any sex practitioner,” but unlike the Bible, Rook & Ward does not merely repeat the same parables again and again. As Rook explained, the work “started as pure legal analysis 30 years ago,” and “has now expanded into a more comprehensive treatise that pays significant attention to the socio-political context.”
Rook & Ward’s seventh edition reflects these profound changes in understandings of sexual offences. New chapters focus on image based sexual abuse, sexual offences in the military context, sexual offences in Scotland, sexual offences and violence as international crimes, and the assessment and rehabilitation of people convicted of sexual offences after sentencing.
First published in 1990, Rook & Ward emerged into a legal landscape which was virtually unrecognisable by today’s standards. Marital rape was not a criminal offence, shielded by the common law exemption articulated in Matthew Hale CJ’s History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736), which declared “by their mutual matrimonial contract, the wife hath given herself up to her husband, consent which she cannot retract.” This was only overturned with R v R [1991] UKHL 12, later confirmed in statute by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
This history gives particular force and relevance to the seventh edition’s sustained focus on sexual abuse in a domestic context. Chapter 1 confronts the fraught question of consent in circumstances of coercive control, explaining that approximately one-third of rapes occur within intimate relationships – a fact which the law was too slow to confront.
Despite Rook & Ward’s moral clarity, authority, and relevance, the practical realities of rape prosecutions remain deeply troubling. There are currently 14,180 sexual offence cases awaiting trial in Crown Court backlogs – a 77% increase since 2022. Research from the Rape Crisis Centre has shown that survivors of adult rape wait an average of 499 days for Crown Court trials where a defendant is not remanded – 192 days longer than parties will wait in all other offence types. An estimated 60% of complainants to drop their cases before they get to trial.
Whilst the government is touting reforms to restrict the right to jury trials, Rook himself expressed opposition to such restrictions for most offences. He suggested that any reform to jury trials should be approached with caution and piloted beforehand – as in Scotland – rather than imposed on the criminal justice system wholesale.
However, Rook acknowledged that jurors’ decision-making is particularly susceptible to bias in RASSO trials because of the persistence of “rape myths.” Appendix A of the seventh edition, entitled ‘Myths and Misconceptions’, critically examines these. The difficulties posed to prosecutors by such myths are evident – a juror who believes a case does not align with their preconception of how a sexual abuse case ‘should look’ may be more inclined to reject the Crown’s case. Rape myths are frequently reflected in cross-examination adopted by defence counsel, where delays in reporting abuse is a common line of questioning used to undermine the complainant’s credibility.
The City Law School has played a vital part in attempting to dispel these misconceptions. In partnership with Justice is Now, students have the opportunity to observe rape trials, and record the use of rape myths in court when they appear. In 2025, over 450 students registered to the scheme, and more continue to participate in 2026.
Professor Katrin Hohl OBE argued part of Rook & Ward’s virtue is that, whilst not necessarily leading to direct changes in the law, it improves the quality of advocacy and judicial reasoning in RASSO trials. The informed, reflective ethos embodied in Rook & Ward found practical expression in Professor Hohl’s work on Operation Soteria, which transformed how rape and serious sexual offences are investigated. This evidence-led approach, which combined academic commentary with criminal investigative procedure, is a model for what a genuinely victim-focused prosecution should entail, and was implemented by all 43 police forces and the CPS across England and Wales.
The evening concluded by raising a toast to City St George’s, and with thanks to Dr Cassandra Wiener and others for bringing the project to the Law School. The event demonstrated the virtue of collaboration between policy-makers, practitioners, and academics, and how legal scholarship bridges theory and practice. Rook & Ward is a rare example of a book that should be on every practitioner’s, and every law school’s bookshelf.
Thanks to Joey Ricciardiello for his account of this important launch, it really was fantastic to have HHJ Peter Rook KC and Robert Ward KC here at City. Look out for a future piece on the Justice is Now partnership in the coming weeks.
Joey is currently studying the Graduate Diploma in Law and is a member of the Lawbore Journalist Team 2025-26. He is an aspiring barrister interested in the criminal and public Bar. Previously, he worked in the House of Commons as a researcher/speechwriter for an MP. He graduated from New College, Oxford with BA (Hons) in History, followed by an MSt in 18thCentury British and European History.