THE head of Scotland’s national rape task force today vowed that police would not fail historic victims of sex crime as they may have been in the past.

Detective Superintendent Louise Raphael called the difference between the investigation of rape in previous decades compared with 2016 “night and day”.

Ms Raphael spoke out in Glasgow before giving a lecture on the responses to rape by police, organised by Rape Crisis Scotland and the Glasgow Women’s Project.

The latest available statistics from Police Scotland’s quarterly reports show the number of reported sex crimes in Greater Glasgow increased by 9.7%.

From April last year to October there were 933 reports, compared to 876 during the same period the previous year.

There were 123 reports of rape in Greater Glasgow from April to October 2015 - an increase of 1.5% on the previous year.

Ms Raphael, who is retiring from the force this week, said the increase was “positive” because it showed there was confidence among victims.

She said older generations may have been failed by the police response - but they would not be if they came forward today.

She said: “The reality is that Police Scotland response to rape is like night and day to what it was previously.

“Victims are treated with dignity and treated with respect. We conduct thorough investigations in all cases regardless of who’s involved and when it was committed.

“I wouldn’t want us to deal with the legacy of perhaps generations before.

“I think we have to be honest about our response. I think there’s been a lot of publicity around cases that haven’t been dealt with as they should have been.

“Part of my responsibility is to make sure that that is no longer the case."

Ms Raphael said she “hardly” recognised the way rape is investigated today in comparison to the past.

She said: “We’ve completely revised all of our processes, improved all our processes, made sure they were properly focused - and that focus has to be the victim."

Police are concerned over victims being targeted on dating apps such as Tinder.

Ms Raphael said: “There is an increased use of the internet whether that’s social networking sites or dating sites. There’s clearly an increased use of that so therefore proportionately we would expect to see some issues that arise from the use of the internet. And that’s certainly what we have seen.”

Ms Raphael said the future focus was on preventing sex crime.

She said: “I guess you could argue that for every rape that’s reported to us, it is a failing because we’ve got a fundamental responsibility to prevent crimes.”

Sandy Brindley, Rape Crisis Scotland coordinator said: “The police approach has transformed over the past few years.

“Overwhelmingly the feedback we get now is positive about their experiences.

“There’s always going to be room for some improvement but really across the board the feedback we’ve received has improved so much in the past few years. I would say survivors have much more confidence now in how the police are responding.”