The number of sexual offences recorded by police reached a record high in the year to September, increasing by more than a fifth compared with before the pandemic.
Home Office figures published on Thursday found there were 199,021 sexual offences recorded by forces across England and Wales in the year to September 2022, as well as 70,633 rapes.
That was 22% higher than in the year ending March 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic. The number of recorded sex offences dropped during Covid-19 lockdowns, but there has been a sustained rise since April last year.
The figures suggest a high number of historical sex crimes are being reported. Looking only at police forces that provide extra data to the Home Office, 22% of all sexual offences and 31% of rapes recorded were for crimes that had taken place more than a year earlier.
Separate figures from the crime survey of England and Wales – used to measure the prevalence of actual crime over time – found no statistically significant rise in sex crime over the period, suggesting the increase in the police figures is at least partly because victims are more likely to come forward, and police are better at recording.
A number of high-profile sexual assault cases happened over the year to September, including the sentencing of the police officer Wayne Couzens for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, and the arrest of the police officer David Carrick, revealed to be a serial rapist.
Diana Fawcett, the chief executive of the Victim Support charity, said: “This huge rise in recorded sexual offences comes as the percentage of cases seeing justice has plummeted to an abysmal new low. Charges for rape and sexual offences have been falling sharply for the past six years – the system is in crisis. We are on a path to destroying victims’ faith in the criminal justice system altogether.
“Police and the CPS have a duty to survivors who have experienced life-changing trauma – they must do better and start delivering justice.”
Meghan Elkin from the Office for National Statistics said that the police-recorded figures “do not provide reliable trends in crime but are a better indicator of police activity”.
She said: “While police-recorded sexual offences are the highest annual figures recorded for England and Wales, the crime survey shows no significant change in prevalence.
“The police figures are influenced by a number of factors, including willingness to report. And for forces where data is available we see that 22% of all sexual offences reported last year had taken place over a year prior to the incident being recorded.”
Separate figures from the ONS showed that fraud cases had fallen back to March 2020 levels, after a jump during the pandemic. The number of thefts was down 20% compared with the year ending March 2020, while police-recorded murders and knife crimes were down 8% and robberies were down 21% compared with pre-pandemic levels.
A spokesperson for the CPS said: “The CPS has been on a significant journey in the way we approach rape, focusing on working in partnership with the police to make lasting changes that are making a difference.
“We are seeing more rape cases charged, and the percentage of suspects we charge remains steady at around 70%.
“There is still more to do. We’re working hard to ensure the lessons we’ve learned around joint working and communication with police at an earlier stage, are applied when approaching all crime types.”
