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Sexual communication with a child - 154/18

Date Responded 20 February 2018

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:

1.How many offences of Sexual Communication with a Child were recorded by your police between April 2017 when the law changed, and December 31 2017?

 2.If possible, please could you provide a breakdown of method used by groomers (eg. Snapchat) in the recorded offences of Sexual Communication with a Child during the specified period?

 3.If possible, please could you provide a breakdown of (a) how many boys and (b) how many girls were targeted by groomers in offences recorded during the specified period?

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.

 The data was taken from the Central Database using the HO Code 071/17, Engage in sexual communications with a child using the date parameters set out in this request.  Each record was then manually reviewed to obtain the method of communication used.

The results of that research is as attached.

Files

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.

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