Question to the Attorney General:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prosecutions have been double flagged by the Crown Prosecution Service over the past three years using the flag for monitoring human trafficking, and the flag for monitoring child abuse.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) identify both human trafficking and child abuse cases by way of a database monitoring flag applied to the electronic case record.

The number of defendants prosecuted for flagged human trafficking offences where the child abuse flag was also applied are as follows:

The figures provided represent the number of defendants prosecuted. Cases of trafficking for child exploitation (particularly child sexual exploitation) can involve networks of multi-defendants who have sexually exploited young female victims. Therefore, in the relatively low numbers of cases cross flagged, a small number of additional cases in one year involving upwards of 9 to 12 defendants each will have a significant effect on the annual figures. This, in part, explains the reduction in the number of defendants prosecuted for both human trafficking and child abuse; down from 59 in 2013/14 to 24 in 2014/15.