Violence against Women and Girls Crime report contents

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The underlying data is provided in the linked annex at the beginning of the VAWG report on page 15. It includes the Area and police force district pre-charge data. Since 2014-15, the VAWG assurance assessment has included pre-charge as well as charged data. Equalities issues Gender Of the 100,930 defendants prosecuted, 92,851 defendants were male, 7,992 were female and in 87 cases the gender was not recorded 72 . In 2015-16, where the gender of the defendant was recorded, 92.1% were male and 7.9% female 73 , similar to the previous years. For victim data, from the Witness Management System, 104,193 victims were recorded. Of all victims, 71,706 were female, 14,406 were male and in 18,081 cases the gender was not recorded. The recording of victim gender fell slightly from 84% in 2014-15 to 82.6% in 2015-16. Where the gender of the victim was recorded, the proportion of female victims was 83.3% and male victims were 16.7%, with similar levels recorded over the previous five years (84% and 16%). Ethnicity In 2015-16, 76.4% of DA defendants were categorised as White (a fall from 78.8% in 2014-15), with 70.9% being identified as belonging to the White British category. 6.2% of defendants were identified as Black, a slight rise of 0.7ppt from the previous year and 5.6% were identified as Asian, a slight rise of 0.1ppt from the previous year 74 . Just under half of victim ethnicity is still not recorded and therefore the data is not included in this report. Age From those defendants where age was recorded 75 , the majority of defendants were aged 25-59 (73.7%) and 18-24 (21.7%). Just under 24.4% of defendants (24,521) were aged 24 and under, with 2,591 (2.6%) of defendants being 14-17 years old and 147 (0.1%) aged 10-13. From those victims where age was recorded 76 , the majority were aged 25-59 (67.6%) and 18-24 (22.5%). Similar to defendant age, 27.5% of victims (23,876) were 24 years old and under, with 3,329 (3.8%) of victims being 14-17 years old, 732 (0.8%) aged 10-13 and 247 under 10 (0.3%). Relationships Recording of the relationship between the perpetrator and victim is not yet robust enough to assess, however the extent of recording within the CPS database has improved again, from 17% in 2010-11 to 57.6% in 2015-16. 72 It is not possible to provide data on the gender of victims in relation to the gender of the defendant from the current data systems. 73 The figure is similar if calculated out of total, including unrecorded gender (92% male defendants and 7.9% female defendants). 74 3.8% of defendants did not state an ethnicity on arrest (a rise since 2014-15 of 1ppt) and 5.4% of defendants’ ethnicity was not provided to the CPS by the police (a rise since 2014-15 of 0.6 ppt). 75 99.6% of defendant ages were recorded in 2015-16 – the same as in 2014-15. 76 83.3% of victim ages were recorded in 2015-16, a rise from 82.4% in 2014-15. 32
Cross-government issues Implementation of Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015: Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in an Intimate or Family Relationship A new offence, s.76 of the Serious Crime Act Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in an Intimate or Family Relationship came into force on 30 December 2015. A person commits this offence if they repeatedly or continuously engage in behaviour towards another person that is controlling or coercive and at the time of the behaviour they are personally connected and the behaviour has a serious effect on the other person. The offence is triable either way with a maximum penalty (on conviction on indictment) of five years’ imprisonment. Alongside s.76 of the Serious Crime Act, the CPS continues to consider a range of other offences which are particularly relevant to controlling or coercive behaviour such as threats to kill, breaches of non-molestation orders and false imprisonment. To support prosecutors to make effective decisions in relevant cases, the CPS: published specific legal guidance on the offence (link) and amended its existing legal guidance on DA (link); advised the Home Office (HO) on the development of Statutory Guidance; developed a training pack and held a Master Class for the Area VAWG coordinators to enable them to carry out local training and awareness raising activity on the new offence; approved plans to develop a bespoke e-learning module on the controlling or coercive behaviour which will be mandated for completion by all prosecutors. The module is due to be released in 2016-17; worked with the police to update the evidence gathering checklist with the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour, to ensure that all evidential opportunities are maximised and that a full history of offending behaviour has been captured (link); issued a charging advice sheet to further clarify the existing requirements around police referral of DA to the CPS in accordance with the Director’s Guidance on Charging (link); and contributed to College of Policing training on controlling or coercive behaviour. In order to monitor compliance against the legal guidance, decision-making in all identified cases referred for charging and prosecuted between 29 December 2015 and 29 February 2016 will be analysed in 2016-17. From 31 December 2015 to 31 March 2016, five prosecutions were completed under the new offence – two defendants were convicted of the new offence; one was convicted of harassment; one of common assault and one was unsuccessful. The box below outlines some case studies of cases commencing prosecution under the new offence during 2015-16 77 . 77 Some cases were completed in 2016-17. 33
Page 2 and 3: Violence against Women and Girls Cr
Page 4 and 5: This report also includes informati
Page 6 and 7: Data cannot be correlated between t
Page 8 and 9: Stalking and harassment 9 Prosecu
Page 10 and 11: Sexual offences (excluding rape) 13
Page 12 and 13: Child abuse The volume of child a
Page 14 and 15: The CPS, police and judiciary joint
Page 16 and 17: Forced marriage, honour based viole
Page 18 and 19: Stalking, harassment, sexual offenc
Page 20 and 21: Violence against Women and Girls VA
Page 22 and 23: analysis are provided for Areas, fo
Page 24 and 25: Grooming and social media A Police
Page 26 and 27: Graph 2: VAWG caseload as % of tota
Page 28 and 29: Area performance The tables on page
Page 30 and 31: Domestic Abuse On 30 December 2015,
Page 32 and 33: Graph 7: DA prosecution and convict
Page 36 and 37: Controlling and coercive behaviour
Page 38 and 39: Transforming Summary Justice Transf
Page 40 and 41: Domestic homicide: A man was foun
Page 42 and 43: Table 2a: Harassment and stalking o
Page 44 and 45: Stalking and harassment The CPS per
Page 46 and 47: Stalking - post relationship-breakd
Page 48 and 49: Rape In 2015-16 there was a rise in
Page 50 and 51: In 2015-16 88 the number of prosecu
Page 52 and 53: acquittals account for the majority
Page 54 and 55: Local good practice CPS North
Page 56 and 57: Consent Police, prosecutors, in-hou
Page 58 and 59: The guidance is designed to improve
Page 60 and 61: Unduly lenient sentence A 'stranger
Page 62 and 63: Heads of RASSO Units cascaded the t
Page 64 and 65: Table 5: Completed sexual offence p
Page 66 and 67: Age From those defendants where age
Page 68 and 69: Forced marriage, honour based viole
Page 70 and 71: Honour based violence The data belo
Page 72 and 73: Female Genital Mutilation The CPS p
Page 74 and 75: Child abuse All cases of child abus
Page 76 and 77: Victim data 127 , from the Witness
Page 78 and 79: National Child Sexual Abuse Review
Page 80 and 81: Local partnership working In C
Page 82 and 83: Table 9: Completed human traffickin
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Sexual trafficking The defendant wa
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Forced labour A factory owner who e
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TOTAL 114 197 140 97 55 99 111 C Ke
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Pornography and obscenity In 2015-1
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Communications Act 2003 (127 (2)(a)
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As outlined in the child abuse sect
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VAWG prosecutions by police force a
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DA prosecutions by police force are
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Rape prosecutions by police force a
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Sexual offence prosecutions by poli
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without violence, compared with 6,6
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England and Wales, with a convictio
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this is not an exhaustive list and
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Homicide: Offences against the pers
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Reasons for unsuccessful outcomes A
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Glossary of acronyms BME Black and
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