Under 18's victims of sex attacks

1. How many children (under18) were victims of sex offences committed in your police force area last year – April 2010- Mar 2011?

2. Can you please supply a gender and exact age breakdown for these victims?

3. How many had previously been reported as victims of sex abuse offences?

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 calculation is the cost of extracting the information in respect of your question 3.

In order to provide that information it would require a case by case review of each file/report. As there were 274 victims recorded during the time period specified it is estimated that it would take approximately 22 hours for one person to retrieve the data. 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 can say, as mentioned above, that there were 274 victims of sexual offences aged 17 and under recorded in the time period you mention. Their ages range from 2 years old to 17 years old. 40 were males and the remainder were female.