Offences against Children: Prosecutions

(asked on 8th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions for arranging or facilitating exploitation of a child there have been under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in each year since its enactment.


Answered by
Michael Ellis Portrait
Michael Ellis
This question was answered on 14th December 2020

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides offences relating to the sexual exploitation of children, under Sections 10, 14 and 47 – 50.

  • Section 10 makes it an offence for a person aged 18 or over intentionally to cause or incite a child aged under 16 to engage in sexual activity.
  • Section 14 makes it an offence for a person intentionally to arrange or facilitate any action which will involve an offence under any of sections 9 - 13 being committed against a child.
  • Section 47 – 50 provides a number of child exploitation offences including paying for the sexual services of a child and controlling a child in relation to sexual exploitation.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced, including the offences charged by way of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Since the Act came into force, and up to the end of March 2020, the number of child exploitation offences charged by way of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is as follows:

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 10 }

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 14 }

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 47 }

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 48 }

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 49 }

Sexual Offences Act 2003 { 50 }

2004-2005

62

6

0

1

0

0

2005-2006

327

29

15

26

1

2

2006-2007

528

57

18

21

8

0

2007-2008

507

48

19

22

3

1

2008-2009

589

41

37

32

2

2

2009-2010

732

59

15

33

7

7

2010-2011

1001

92

12

51

4

8

2011-2012

949

83

18

57

3

17

2012-2013

943

78

26

90

8

10

2013-2014

995

81

36

89

9

39

2014-2015

1310

132

49

198

3

31

2015-2016

1556

163

79

277

11

11

2016-2017

2020

190

38

263

15

67

2017-2018

1978

184

57

191

7

28

2018-2019

1240

100

48

160

7

7

2019-2020

977

277

33

72

0

4

Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System

There is no indication of the number of individual defendants prosecuted for these offences or the final outcome of the prosecution proceeding or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation. It is often the case that defendants will be prosecuted for more than one offence in the same set of proceedings.

It is not possible to separately report the nature of, or type of sexual exploitation carried out on victims of child sexual offences other than by manually examining case files at disproportionate cost.

Reticulating Splines