FOI 463-2025 / Apr 2025 / Sexual offence
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 463-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 23rd April 2025 as follows:
Please share the following information for each police station in your force.
Q1. How many reports of rape and sexual offences were there with an identified suspect?
Q2. Of the reports of rape and sexual offences with an identified suspect, please share the outcome of each case. For example, no further action, referred to the CPS.
Q3. Of the reports of rape and sexual offences with an identified suspect (identified in Q1), how many identified suspects were interviewed? Please share the number of cases rather than the number of identified suspects interviewed.
Q4. Of the reports of rape and sexual offences with an identified suspect (identified in Q1), how many victims were interviewed? Please share the number of cases rather than the number of victims interviewed.
Please may I have information for over the past 5 years, from 1 January 2020.
On 24th April 2024 you provided the below clarification:
All Rape and sexual assault broken down by police station. If this is not possible, broken down by local policing area.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
The numerical data presented in this response is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.
Q1 response: When reviewing the information please note that it was obtained by searching for all Sexual Offences (including Rape Offences) occurring in Warwickshire, recorded between 1st January 2020 and 31st December 2024, where there was at least one named suspect recorded. The results have then been broken down by policing area and year. However, please note that not all offences have a suspect recorded and some may have more than one suspect; therefore, the number of crimes with suspect(s) will not reflect the number of crimes recorded overall for the period. In addition, for various reasons not all crimes are recorded as having occurred within the five policing areas of Warwickshire, some have been recorded as having occurred outside the force area or this field has been left blank. Therefore, those crimes that did not fall within the below areas have not been included.
Table 1: The number of sexual offence crimes with at least one named suspect that have been recorded in the period.
|
Number of Sexual Offences with at least one named suspect |
||||||
|
Policing Area |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
Total |
|
North Warwickshire |
99 |
112 |
105 |
108 |
121 |
545 |
|
Nuneaton & Bedworth |
303 |
323 |
327 |
332 |
356 |
1641 |
|
Rugby |
172 |
212 |
219 |
245 |
263 |
1111 |
|
Stratford-Upon-Avon |
139 |
149 |
191 |
218 |
218 |
915 |
|
Warwick |
221 |
234 |
285 |
281 |
304 |
1325 |
|
Grand Total |
934 |
1030 |
1127 |
1184 |
1262 |
5537 |
Q2 response: When reviewing the information please note that the below reflects the outcomes from those crimes identified in Q1.
Crime outcomes will only reflect the most serious outcome for any suspect attached to a crime, i.e, where there are multiple suspects attached to an investigation, the outcome would not take into account ‘lesser’ or ‘like’ outcomes of any other suspect(s).
Table 2: The outcomes for the crimes in table 1.
|
Crime Outcome Types |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
Total |
|
Adult Caution - conditional |
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
|
Type 1 - Charged/Summonsed/Postal Requisition |
87 |
103 |
101 |
108 |
84 |
483 |
|
Type 10 - Formal Action Against Offender is not in the Public Interest (Police) |
1 |
|
|
|
2 |
3 |
|
Type 11 - Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Below The Age Of Criminal Responsibility |
10 |
8 |
24 |
39 |
14 |
95 |
|
Type 12 - Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Too Ill (Physical Or Mental Health) To Prosecute, or confirmed died either before crime reported or before enough evidence to charge |
20 |
13 |
10 |
20 |
20 |
83 |
|
Type 13 - Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Victim Or Key Witness Is Dead Or Too Ill To Give Evidence |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
|
Type 14 - Evidential Difficulties Victim Based- Suspect Not Identified: Crime Confirmed But The Victim Either Declines Or Unable To Support Further Police Investigation To Identify The Offender |
11 |
13 |
16 |
9 |
28 |
77 |
|
Type 15 - Named Suspect Identified: Victim Supports Police Action But Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action |
292 |
341 |
333 |
319 |
234 |
1519 |
|
Type 16 - Named Suspect Identified: Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action: Victim Does Not Support (Or Has Withdrawn Support From) Police Action |
346 |
444 |
501 |
443 |
414 |
2148 |
|
Type 17 - Prosecution Time Limit Expired: Suspect Identified But Prosecution Time Limit Has Expired |
|
|
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
Type 18 - Investigation Complete; No Suspect Identified. Crime Investigated As Far As Reasonably Possible-Case Closed Pending Further Investigative Opportunities Becoming Available |
22 |
15 |
10 |
10 |
6 |
63 |
|
Type 1A - Charged/Summons - alternate offence. Offender has been charged under the alternate offence rule. |
21 |
9 |
19 |
23 |
22 |
94 |
|
Type 2 - Caution Youth |
5 |
|
2 |
|
|
7 |
|
Type 20 - Further action resulting from the crime report will be undertaken by another body or agency subject to the victim (or person acting on their behalf) being made aware of the act to be taken |
76 |
45 |
30 |
56 |
54 |
261 |
|
Type 21 - Further investigation resulting from crime report which could provide evidence sufficient to support formal action against the suspect is not in the public interest - police decision. |
27 |
12 |
31 |
48 |
57 |
175 |
|
Type 22 - Diversionary, educational or intervention activity, resulting from the crime report, has been undertaken and it is not in the public interest to take any further action. |
6 |
10 |
12 |
11 |
14 |
53 |
|
Type 2A - Caution Youth - alternate offence. Offender is a juvenile and has been given a youth caution under the alternate offences rule. |
|
1 |
|
|
|
1 |
|
Type 3 - Caution Adult |
1 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
8 |
|
Type 3A - Caution Adult - alternate offence. Offender has been given a simple caution under the alternate offences rule. |
|
1 |
|
|
|
1 |
|
Type 5 - Offender has died |
|
|
2 |
1 |
25 |
28 |
|
Type 8 - Community resolution (Crime) |
2 |
|
|
5 |
2 |
9 |
|
Type 9 - Prosecution Not In the Public Interest (CPS) |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
2 |
|
Under Investigation |
6 |
12 |
29 |
89 |
282 |
418 |
|
Youth Conditional Caution |
|
|
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
Grand Total |
934 |
1030 |
1127 |
1184 |
1262 |
5537 |
Q3 and Q4 response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no flag, marker or field within the Crime Recording System to identify whether a suspect has been interviewed in relation to a sexual offence. Likewise, there is no easily identifiable method with which to determine if a victim has had a video recorded interview to achieve best evidence. Therefore, in order to determine responses for Q3 and Q4 of the request, it would be necessary to individually review each sexual offence with an identified suspect. The business area has advised that they have conducted a search for all sexual offences (including Rape), with a suspect role recorded, for the period 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2024 and that this identified 5,537 crimes, which would need to be individually reviewed. At a conservative estimate of 5 minutes per record to review, this would equate to in excess of 461 hours of work. Therefore, this would exceed the cost threshold of £450, which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for these parts of the request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request; however, due to the volume of records that would need to be reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to revise these parts of the request into ones that could be provided within the fees limit.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible; however, the data is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, therefore care should be taken to ensure data collection processes, and their inevitable limitations are considered when interpreting the data.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB