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Sexual Offences - 047/20

Date Responded 29 January 2020

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. Please tell me the number of recorded offences under s.15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, sexual communication with a child, (Home Office recording code 71/17) recorded from (and including) April 3, 2019, until (and including) October 2, 2019.
  2. Where possible I would like to know the age and gender of the victim, broken down into age groups: 11 and under, 12-15, 16 and over.
  3. Please tell me the age and gender of the youngest victim.
  4. Please tell me all the forms of communication (eg. text message, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Kik etc.) that have been recorded as having been used in connection with recorded offences under s.15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, sexual communication with a child, from (and including) April 3, 2019, until (and including) October 2, 2019.

Please tell me how many times a cyber flag was attached to the recorded crime for these dates.

In Response:

With regards to the information supplied below it should be noted that age is not always available in these cases.  There were a high number of these instigated by paedophile hunter groups, wherein a decoy was used to elicit response from the offender; in these cases, there would be no victim age.  In other cases, it may not be recorded due to a reluctance to interact with the police.

"Forms of communication" has been gathered from a free-text reading of the crime information. In some cases this has not been specified exactly - eg, "social media" used rather than a specific website or app.  In many cases, multiple forms of communication have been used.  "Direct" in communication refers to face-to-face communication rather than some form of electronic message.

Bearing the above in mind please see the information below.

1. 61

2.

Age Range

Count

0 – 11

13

12 – 15

27

16 – 100

1

 

3.

Age

7

Gender

Female

 

4.

Communication Form

"Oasis" chatroom

Kik

Blendr

Robolox

ChatIB

SayHi

ChatIW

Snapchat

Direct

Tell On Ym

Facebook

Text

Hangout

WhatsApp

Instagram

Whisper

 

5. 53

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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