PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Rape (14 October 2014)

To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of Crown Prosecution Service rape-flagged convictions were for (a) a rape charge, (b) another sexual offence, (c) an offence against the person and (d) a non-violent offence in each of the last five years.

Asked by:
Emily Thornberry (Labour)

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains records of the number of defendants prosecuted and convicted, where the rape monitoring flag has been applied to the case.

A rape flag is applied at the onset of a case, and remains in place even if the charges are subsequently amended or dropped. It follows that there may be cases where a person was proceeded against for rape but convicted of another offence.

The CPS also records prosecution outcomes according to Principal Offence Categories.

The CPS does not record outcome by individual charge and is therefore unable to provide data in respect of (a) as this would require the review of individual case files and incur disproportionate cost. Likewise, it is not possible to distinguish between convictions for rape and for other sexual offences and therefore it is not possible to provide data in respect of (b).

(c) The way in which the CPS recording system operates means only one principal offence category is assigned to each case, and these are assigned in hierarchical order.

We can provide data on those cases flagged as rape and finalised in the ‘offences against the person’ principal offence category, however it is important to note that in such cases, a conviction for the rape charge may have also been secured.

During each of the last five years the number and proportion of defendants convicted, for cases flagged as rape and where the Principal Offence Category was identified as ‘Offences against the Person’ is as follows:

	Offences Against The Person Flagged as Rape
2009-2010		217	9.7%
2010-2011		189	7.8%
2011-2012		168	7.0%
2012-2013		197	8.6%
2013-2014		175	7.6%

Data Source: CPS Management Information System

(d) Each Principal Offence Category includes a broad range of offences; some involving violence and some non-violent. In order to establish the number of rape flagged defendants convicted of a non-violent offence would require the review of individual case files which would incur disproportionate cost.

Answered by:
Sir Robert Buckland (Conservative)
21 October 2014