Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports of online child grooming have been received by the police in each of the last five years; and how many convictions for online child grooming have been made in each such year.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office collects information from police forces on the number of police recorded offences that have an online element. The online flag became mandatory from April 2015 therefore data prior to this are not available.
Information on the number of child sexual offences flagged as having an online element are published as experimental statistics in the ONS ‘Crime in England and Wales’ quarterly bulletins. The ‘child sexual offences’ category includes sexual grooming. Information on sexual grooming is not separately published.
These data can be found in table E12 of the experimental tables on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesexperimentaltables.
The Home Office does not hold information on the number of online child grooming offences which have led to prosecutions. The Ministry of Justice are responsible for prosecutions data.
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) reports, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions there have been for drive-off forecourt fuel theft in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The information requested is not held centrally. The Home Office collects data on the number of making off without payment offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, but it is not possible to tell from these data whether the offence was forecourt fuel theft. Information on the number of making off without payment offences recorded by the police are published by the Office for National Statistics and can be found here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/crimeinenglandandwalesyearendingdec2016
The Home Office does not hold information on the number of offences that led to conviction. Data on prosecutions and convictions are the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many parents have been (a) accused and (b) convicted of killing or assaulting their child or children in each of the last five years; and how many such children had been removed from their parents into the care system and subsequently returned.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The available information for homicides of children under 16 by their parents recorded by police in England and Wales is given in the table and is taken from the Home Office Homicide Index.
Data are based on the number of offenders whose court proceedings have been completed. Due to the time it can take for cases to pass through the criminal justice system, there is likely to be an increase in the number of people convicted of homicide for recent years when updated figures become available.
The Home Office hold data on assaults but from these date it is not possible to identify the relationship between the victim and the suspect.
The Home Office do not hold data on children in care. These are the responsibility of the Department for Education.
Table A: Number of suspects charged and convicted of homicide of a child under 16 where the suspect was a parent1234 2010/11 to 2014/15
Suspect = Parent | 2010/2011 | 2011/2012 | 2012/2013 | 2013/2014 | 2014/2015 |
| |||||
Suspect charged | 36 | 29 | 46 | 30 | 32 |
Suspect convicted of homicide | 17 | 22 | 23 | 15 | 7 |
Suspect convicted of lesser offence | 4 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 1 |
Suspect committed suicide/died | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
Other outcome | 10 | 1 | 12 | 8 | 16 |
1. Source: Homicide Index, Home Office
2. Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics
3. As at 13 November 2015; figures are subject to revision as cases are dealt with by the police and by the courts, or as further information becomes available
4. Note that homicide cases recorded in more recent years may not yet have completed their court proceedings
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many UK police forces have a dedicated unit dealing with the prosecution and identification of (a) sexual offences against children and (b) other online offences; and which UK police forces also hold specialist expertise in child protection and safeguarding.
Answered by Karen Bradley
Tackling child sexual abuse including online child sexual exploitation is a top priority for this Government. We have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat in the Strategic Policing Requirement, setting a clear expectation on police forces to safeguard children, collaborate across force boundaries, share intelligence and share best practice.
The College of Policing and the National Policing lead have set the requirement on all forces to train all new and existing police staff including police officers, detectives and specialist investigators to respond to child sexual abuse.
We are committed to supporting the police to tackle these horrendous crimes. We have made £1.7 million available to fund Operation Hydrant, which co-ordinates the handling of multiple non-recent child sexual abuse investigations specifically concerning institutions or persons of public prominence, and up to £1.5 million to support a new network of regional co-ordinators and analysts to oversee the implementation of the National Policing Plan for tackling child sexual exploitation.
The Government will also continue to invest in law enforcement capabilities at the national, regional and local levels to ensure they have the capacity to deal with the increasing volume and sophistication of cyber-dependant crime and cyber-enabled fraud, including support for the Regional Organised Crime Units, who have a dedicated Cyber Crime Unit each. As the Chancellor also announced last week, spending on the UK’s cyber security programmes will be almost doubled over the next five years, with £1.9 billion funding.
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many offences where alcohol consumption was a contributory factor were recorded by Hampshire Police in each of the last three years; how many such offences took place in (a) Basingstoke, (b) Newbury and (c) Andover; and how many such cases involved repeat offenders.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Home Office does not hold the information requested centrally.
According to the 2013/14 Crime Survey for England and Wales, there were an estimated 704,000 violent incidents where the offender was under the influence of alcohol (53% of violent incidents), in England and Wales as a whole. This is compared with around 863,000 incidents in 2010/11 (48% of violent incidents). The proportion of violent incidents perceived to involve alcohol is similar between 2010/11 and 2013/14 (not statistically significantly different).
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people Hampshire Police has prosecuted for supplying legal highs to children aged under 18 in (a) Basingstoke, (b) Andover and (c) Hampshire in each of the last three years.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Home Office does not hold the information requested centrally.
On 28 May, we introduced the Psychoactive Substances Bill in the House of Lords to create a blanket ban on the supply of psychoactive substances.
The Bill will ban the sale, supply, production and distribution of psychoactive substances for human consumption and give police and local authorities greater powers to tackle this reckless trade.
Asked by: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many times Hampshire Police has confiscated legal highs from children aged under 18 in (a) Basingstoke, (b) Andover and (c) Hampshire in each of the last three years.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Home Office does not hold the information requested centrally.
On 28 May, we introduced the Psychoactive Substances Bill in the House of Lords to create a blanket ban on the supply of psychoactive substances.
The Bill will ban the sale, supply, production and distribution of psychoactive substances for human consumption and give police and local authorities greater powers to tackle this reckless trade.