asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will provide statistics on the number of (a) reported rape allegations; (b) persons subject to charge; (c) persons subject to prosecution; and (d) persons convicted; in each of the past three years for England and Wales and, if available, Scotland.[HL526]
In the coming months we will be publishing a national action plan on sexual violence and abuse, which will include a range of key actions for the police and the CPS aimed at improving the investigation and prosecution of serious sexual offences.
The available information relates to offences of rape recorded by the police in England and Wales and is given in the first table.
Figures for the number of persons charged are not centrally collected.
Figures from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform for the prosecutions and convictions for rape offences in England and Wales are shown in the second table.
Because recorded crime figures are for offences and court proceedings data count offenders, the two sets of data are not directly comparable.
Information for Scotland is a matter for the Scotland Office.
Year Proceeded against Found guilty 2003 2,790 673 2004 2,689 751 2005 2,826 796 (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by court and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
Number of offences Year Total 2003-04 13,272 2004-05 14,042 2005-06 14,449