Data relating to prosecution for adult rape offences defined by Section 1 Sexual Offences Act 2003 and Section 1 Sexual Offences Act 1956

Request

I am writing to request data relating to prosecution for adult rape offences defined by Section 1 Sexual Offences Act 2003 and Section 1 Sexual Offences Act 1956.

I am aware CPS publish data quarterly relating to rape prosecutions, however I am asking for this data to be divided by the sex of the victim in the case, i.e., one set of data relating to cases where the victim was female, and another set of data relating to cases where the victim was male.

If possible, I am requesting the data be presented by yearly summaries of convictions and non-convictions from 2014 onwards.

If possible, I would also appreciate if the data could also be divided into which CPS office oversaw the case. 

Response

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does hold some data in relation to your request, however we do not centrally collate data showing the sex of victims and the outcome of the prosecution case. This information may be held within individual case files on our case management system (CMS).

To find out how many rape victims were either male or female and the outcome of the case, a manual review of CPS case files would be required, and we believe that this would be at a prohibitive cost.

Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government is set at £600.  This means that the appropriate limit will be exceeded if it would require more than 24 hours work in determining whether the CPS holds the information, and locating, retrieving, and extracting the information.

By way of advice and assistance during the most recent 12-month period ending September 2023, there were 1,960 defendants flagged for adult rape prosecutions. We believe that the cost of reviewing these case files to locate and extract all the information you have requested would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with your request.

However, under section 16 of the FOI Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any, information may assist you with your request, so I attach for your reference an excel spreadsheet labelled ‘12091 DATA’.  This data has been taken from the Witness Management System (WMS) used by Witness Care Units (WCU), who deal specifically with victims and witnesses during the prosecution process, this data cannot be correlated with the defendant, or suspect datasets recorded in the CPS Case Management Unit (CMS) as they are two separate databases.

The data is broken down by sex: male, female and unknown (as this is not always recorded), from cases that are flagged as adult rape. Please take note of the caveats provided with the table which further explain the differences between the WMS and CMS systems and how the data is recorded. Of particular relevance is that the WMS can only provide data on the volumes of victims associated with prosecution proceedings, rather than the outcome of those prosecutions.