Sexual Offences (1007A/22)
Request
- How many sex crimes where the perpetrator was under 18 at the time of the incident were reported each year from 2012 until most recent records?
2. How many arrests were made for serious sexual offences suspected to be committed by children under the age of 18 each year, broken down into years from 2012 – 2022?
3. How many serious sexual offences were committed by youths under 16 in same time frame?
4. How many youths under 18 were arrested under suspicion of rape from 2012-2022?
5. What was the youngest perpetrator arrest for serious sexual assault?
6. How many offences from the above criteria ended up in a conviction?
7. How many of those found guilty, how many ended up with a custodial sentence?
Response
Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. In relation to Question 6 and 7, This information would be held by the courts or prison service and this information is not routinely fed back into our systems.
To obtain this type of information each offender’s PNC record would need to located, retrieved and manually read to see if relevant information was contained within their offence history.
Therefore, the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request
However, in accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and provide some of the information requested, in relation to Question 6 and 7 we have provided outcome as this is the most relevant information we hold in respect of these questions. Please see attached.
This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here: