Please be aware we’re making some improvements and building a new website. You can still report incidents, tell us about general intelligence or talk to us on live chat on this site. Thanks for your patience.

Sex Offences at Football Stadiums - 1536/22

Date Responded 08 November 2022

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

Please tell me how many reported incidents of a) rape, b) sexual assault and c) miscellaneous sexual offences happened in the last five financial years (2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22) at the following address:

  • St. James' Park Stadium, Barrack Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4ST

By ‘rape’, I’m referring exclusively to the following offence classifications:

  • 19C Rape of a female aged 16 and over
  • 19D Rape of a female child under 16
  • 19E Rape of a female child under 13
  • 19F Rape of a male aged 16 and over
  • 19G Rape of a male child under 16
  • 19H Rape of a male child under 13
  • 19J Rape of a Female – Multiple Undefined Offenders
  • 19K Rape of a Male - Multiple Undefined Offenders

By ‘sexual assault’ I’m referring exclusively to the following offence classifications:

  • 17A Sexual assault on a male aged 13 and over
  • 17B Sexual assault on a male child under 13
  • 20A Sexual assault on a female aged 13 and over
  • 20B Sexual assault on a female child under 13
  • 21 Sexual activity involving a child under 13
  • 22A Causing sexual activity without consent
  • 22B Sexual activity involving child under 16

By ‘miscellaneous sexual offences’ I’m referring exclusively to the following offence classifications:

  • 70 Sexual activity etc. with a person with a mental disorder
  • 71 Abuse of children through Sexual Exploitation
  • 73 Abuse of position of trust of a sexual nature
  • 88A Sexual grooming
  • 88C Other miscellaneous sexual offences
  • 88D Unnatural sexual offences
  • 88E Exposure and voyeurism
  • 8Q Stalking
  • 23 Incest or familial sexual offences

Please break down by:

  1. Number of alleged incidents at the above-mentioned addresses
  2. Broken down by ‘rape’ (as defined above), ‘sexual assault’ (as defined above) or ‘miscellaneous sexual offences’ (as defined above)
  3. Further broken down by offence category (e.g. 20 counts of 'miscellaneous sexual offences', of which 5 incidents of 88A sexual grooming, 15 of 88E exposure and voyeurism)

In Response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police.  I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

Offence

2017/18

2018/19

Rape of a female aged 16 and over

-

1

Sexual assault on a female aged 13 or over

-

1

Sexual assault on a male aged 13 and over

1

-

Sexual assault on a male child under 13

-

1

Sexual grooming

-

1

 

With regards to 2021/22 data the below exemption is applicable.

As the information you have requested is accessible by other means I have not provided you with a copy of the information and will rely on Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  You should therefore consider this a refusal for that part of your request.

I have provided an explanation to this exemption below.

Section 21 (1) - Information accessible by other means

Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant is exempt information.

You have already been provided with a response to that timeframe in your previous submission, FOI 711/22, as such Section 21 exemption is applicable.

There have been other recorded offences for the remaining years.

It should be noted that these offences are based on searches of the named location which is used for other events not just Football matches.  The offences should not therefore be assumed to be associated with football.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete.  However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes.  The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.  As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

back to top