FOI 530-24 Sexual Offences
Enquiry Reference: 530 - 24
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request. Below is your request and our response.
- Please tell me the number of recorded offences under s.15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, sexual communication with a child, (Home Office recording code 71/17) recorded from (and including) April 1st 2023 until (and including) March 31st, 2024.
The analyst searched for all crimes of 071/17 - Engage in sexual communication with a child validated between the requested time period with a victim aged under 18 at the time of the offence.
The below table contains the volume of crimes per month/ year
|
|
2023 |
2024 |
||||||||||
|
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
|
071/17 - Engage in sexual communication with a child |
14 |
6 |
* |
5 |
5 |
13 |
* |
10 |
* |
6 |
7 |
* |
*Less than 5
- Where possible I would like to know the age and gender of the victim, broken down into age groups: 11 and under, 12-15, 16 and over.
The table contains the above data by gender and age group requested.
|
|
Female |
Male |
Unknown |
|
11 and Under |
16 |
* |
|
|
12 - 15 years |
40 |
6 |
5 |
|
16 and over |
* |
|
1 |
*Less than 5
- Please tell me the age and gender of the youngest victim.
The youngest victims recorded within this time period were 8-year-old and female.
- Please tell me all the forms of communication (i.e. which social media or messaging platform such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Kik, TikTok etc.) that have been recorded as having been used in connection with recorded offences under s.15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, sexual communication with a child, from (and including) April 1st 2023 , until (and including) March 31st 2024.
The analyst searched the MO comments of the above crimes for the ‘forms of communication’ mentioned by the requester. The below tables shows the volume of mentions each had in an MO. Discord and Omegle and gaming were also mentioned.
|
Word in MO comments |
Volume |
|
Not specified |
29 |
|
Snapchat |
14 |
|
Discord |
8 |
|
social media |
7 |
|
|
5 |
|
TikTok |
4 |
|
|
4 |
|
Omegle |
2 |
|
Gaming |
1 |
Where the number of victims is greater than zero but fewer than five, please use a * if necessary, rather than rejecting my request on the grounds of protecting personal information.
If any part of the request takes it out of scope due to time and cost considerations please consider answering the parts of the request that meet requirements starting with question 1.
Having made enquiries within the Force the above information is all the information we can disclose and for anything else we would rely on the following:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon, Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act requires that I provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) state (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Cleveland Police can neither confirm we hold the information pertinent to this request as the duty in Section 1(1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemption:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption which does not require me to evidence the harm that disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test in justification of its use.
This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, because of the low numbers it could be likely to identify the individuals concerned. Such a disclosure would breach an individual's rights under Article 5(1) of the GDPR.
Please note that all statistical data supplied in relation to Freedom of Information requests is a snapshot of data held at the time the request was received by the Freedom of Information office and is subject to constant change/updates.
The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.
If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The Freedom of Information Code of Practice (see below link) states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced. Public authorities are not obliged to accept internal reviews after this date.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-code-of-practice
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Decision Maker