Child Sexual Abuse

We are trying to establish how many reports of child sexual abuse occur within families, including step-families (intra-familial abuse). Our aim is to establish a fuller picture than we currently have about the number of reports of intra-familial child sexual abuse. This will help us to understand the proportions of child sexual abuse which are committed by strangers, acquaintances and those related to a child. In turn, this will enable us to target our prevention and therapeutic services as effectively as possible.

1. Please could you give us the following information about the number of reported incidents of child sexual abuse in your police force area between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011, or the closest calendar or financial year for which the information is available:

a. The total number of reported cases of child sexual abuse.
b. The total number of cases of each of the offences listed below.
The number of cases in which:
c. The offender was related to the child (including any relationship recorded as ‘domestic related’ and any relationship which is part of a step family).
d. The offender was known but not related to the child.
e. The offender was not known to the child (including ‘stranger incidents’).
f. The relationship not known/recorded.
We would like this information for the following offences, as defined in the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
Rape and other offences against children under 13
i. Section 5: Rape of a child under 13
ii. Section 6: Assault of a child by penetration under 13
iii. Section 7: Sexual Assault of a child under 13
iv. Section 8: Causing or inciting child under 13 to engage in sexual activity
Child sex offences
v. Section 9: Sexual Activity with a child
vi. Section 10: Causing or inciting child to engage in sexual activity
vii. Section 11: Engaging in a sexual activity in the presence of a child
viii. Section 12: Causing a child to watch a sexual act
ix. Section 13: Child sex offences committed by children or young persons
Familial child sex offences

x. Section 25: Sexual activity with a child family member
xi. Section 26: Inciting a child family member to engage in sexual activity
xii. Section 27: Family relationships

2. If it is not possible to provide the information set out in (a) – (f) for all the offences listed, we would like to request prioritising providing it for those offences under the heading of ‘Familial child sex offences’ (Sections 25, 26 and 27 of the Sexual Offences Act).

3. If it is possible to provide the requested data for the previous 5 years without going beyond free of charge limits, then we would also be grateful to receive this.

4. If it is possible, please give a breakdown of the nature of the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim for data given in response to (c) ‘offender was related to the child’ and (d) ‘offender known but not related to the child’.

5. If you are unable to provide this information because of how data on reported crimes is gathered and analysed in your police force area, please could you let us know of any plans to amend your data gathering process so that the relationship between perpetrator and victim will be recorded in the future.

In accordance with section 1(1) (a) of the Act our response is provided below;

From our preliminary assessment, we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The basis for this estimate is the cost of retrieving the data in respect of your sub questions b to f. A preliminary search shows that there are approximately 250 to 300 recorded crimes that may fit the criteria of your request. To answer the request would require a manual examination of each crime file to assess and extract any information relative to the request. This is estimated to take one member of staff a minium of 24 hours to achieve the results. This exceeds the appropriate limit and your request is refused.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Cheshire Constabulary, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you with a notice which a) states that fact, b) specifies the exemption in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.

In order to assist you we estimate that we could supply information in relation to your questions 1 a & b relative to the Home Office coding for these offences.