Conviction rates for sexual assault and rape cases within the South East

Request

I am writing to formally request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the conviction rates of sexual assault and rape cases within the South East, with a specific focus on Kent (and Medway) and its individual boroughs in the last ten years.

I am particularly interested in obtaining data on the number of sexual assault and rape cases that have resulted in a guilty verdict within Kent, broken down by each of the boroughs within the county. This information will aid in understanding the effectiveness of the legal system in addressing such critical issues.

To clarify, I am seeking data for the South East region as a whole and then further segmented to provide data for each of the following Kent boroughs:

1. Ashford
2. Canterbury
3. Dartford
4. Dover
5. Gravesham
6. Maidstone
7. Sevenoaks
8. Shepway
9. Swale
10. Thanet
11. Tonbridge and Malling
12. Tunbridge Wells
13. Medway

The specific details I am requesting include:

1. The total number of sexual assault and rape cases brought to trial in the South East and, separately, for Kent, during the last ten years.
2. The number of cases that resulted in a guilty verdict across the South East and in Kent specifically.
3. The timeframe or reporting period for which this data is available.
4. Any available demographic information, such as the age and gender of the accused and the victims.
5. Any additional information relevant to understanding the context and outcomes of these cases.

I understand that this request may require some time to compile the necessary data, and I am willing to accept electronic records to expedite the process if that is more convenient for CPS.

Response

We have interpreted your request as referring to cases where a trial has been listed and has taken place.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does collate some limited data that falls within the scope of your request and so I attach for your reference an Excel spreadsheet labelled ‘11632 DATA’. The caveats appended to that data should be noted when considering the disclosed information.

In short, the attached table of data shows the number of trials for defendants flagged as ‘rape’ and ‘sexual offences excluding rape’. The data is provided for the South East CPS Area and the Kent Police Force Area. CPS data does not disaggregate into local authority boroughs such as the ones listed above in your request and the data runs from 2013/14 to 2022/23. The table also shows, the number of convictions after trial. Tables 3 to 6 show the age band and the gender of the defendants again broken down to South East CPS and Kent Police Force Area respectively.

Finally, and by way of advice and assistance, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) are the official statistics holders of sentences imposed by the courts and they publish defendant data by specific offence, which may contain more detail than we can provide. You therefore may wish to submit a Freedom of Information request to them via the email address data.access@justice.gov.uk.