To ask the Secretary of State for Justice with reference to the answer of 20 May 2009, Official Report, column 1438W, on children: abuse, how many people aged 21 years and over with a previous conviction were (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted for offences relating to child abuse in 2008. (317143)

According to information recorded by the police on the Police National Computer (PNC) there were 1,323 offenders aged 21 and over who were convicted in 2008 in England and Wales of offences relating to child abuse; at the time of their conviction 721 of these had one or more previous convictions for offences of any kind. Equivalent figures for offenders who have been prosecuted are not available.

These figures have been drawn from the police's administrative IT system which, as with any large scale recording system, is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the police. PNC data have been used here rather than court proceedings data, which are the usual source of published conviction statistics, as the PNC provides information on the criminal history of offenders.