Number of sex offences hits highest annual figure recorded by police in England and Wales

There were 199,021 sex offences recorded by forces in England and Wales in the year ending September 2022. This is up 22 per cent compared with the year ending March 2020. The ONS noted that the number of recorded sexual offences were lower during periods of lockdown but there has been substantial increases since April 2021.

Of all sexual offences recorded by the police in the year ending September 2022, 35 per cent (70,633) were rape –a 20 per cent increase from the 59,104 in the 12 months to March 2020.

Other sexual offences increased to 128,388 offences; a 23 per cent rise compared with the year ending March 2020.

The ONS said: “The latest sexual offences figures may reflect a number of factors, including the impact of high-profile incidents, media coverage, and campaigns on people’s willingness to report both recent and historical incidents to the police, as well as a potential increase in the number of victims.”

It added that 22 per cent of all sexual offences, and 31 per cent of rape offences, in the year to September 2022 had taken place over a year prior to the incident being recorded.

The police also flagged 910,980 recorded offences as domestic abuse-related in the year ending March 2022. This represented a 14 per cent increase from 798,607 recorded offences in the year ending March 2020.

This included 724,064 violence against the person offences flagged as domestic abuse-related, a 16 per cent increase compared with the year ending March 2020.

“Some of this continued increase may reflect increased reporting by victims over the last few years,” said the ONS.

The figures, published on Thursday (January 26), also show the overall number of crimes recorded by England and Wales police forces exceeded pre-pandemic levels to reach 6.6 million in the 12 months to September. This was ten per cent higher than the year to March 2020 when 6.1 million offences were recorded.

There were rises in the numbers of homicides and robberies, as well as crimes involving knives and firearms recorded by police in the last year since Covid restrictions ended, but all remain below levels seen before the pandemic.

The ONS said the year ending September 2022 estimates showed that fraud has now returned to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels with no significant change compared with the year ending March 2020. It suggests increases may have been specific to the coronavirus pandemic period, rather than a sustained change in trend

From the data gathered, the ONS said it appears “too early to say whether or not the decreases seen in most crime types occurring during the coronavirus pandemic will come to represent a sustained change in long-term trends”.

The rise in overall crime was “largely driven by increases in the offence categories, which are most subject to changes in reporting and recording practices” so “may not reflect a genuine increase in crime”.

“While police recorded crime is not generally a good indicator of trends in crime, for some crime types, it can give more insight into lower-volume but higher-harm crimes, including those that the survey does not cover, or capture well,” said the ONS.

This is the first Crime Survey for England and Wales to use a full 12 months of data from face-to-face interviews since the Covid-19 pandemic.