Indecent assault reports (FOI)

Request

A

How many indecent assaults against women have been reported to the Police over the past five years?

B

In percentage terms what are the Nationalities of the alleged perpetrators of these indecent assaults and are there any trends within certain ethnic groups in Jersey?

C

How many indecent assaults over the past five years remain unsolved were the Perpetrator has not been traced?

Response

A

The number of indecent assaults reported to the States of Jersey Police is shown in the table below.

The States of Jersey police follow the UK Home Office counting rules when recording crimes. If an individual reports that they were the victim of a series of indecent assaults, sometime in the past (over a year ago), each event will be recorded and investigated but it will only count as one crime to the annual total recorded. Similarly, if an allegation of rape is made in conjunction with an indecent assault, the crime of rape will be recorded as the primary crime. The indecent assault will be considered for simultaneous prosecution and recorded but will not count toward the Home Office counted crimes. These rules aim to prevent annual figures being distorted by reports of multiple crimes from a single report.

B

This information is held but is Qualified Exempt information under Article 38 and Article 42 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

C

Cases where the suspect has not been traced or is not known are shown in the table below.

Exemptions used:

Article 38: Endangering the safety or health of individuals.

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would or would be likely to-

(a) Endanger the safety of an individual: or

(b) Endanger the physical or mental health of an individual.

Article 42: Law enforcement.

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice –

(a) The prevention, detection or investigation of crime, whether in Jersey or elsewhere.

Public Interest test

Whilst the release of this information may be of interest to a section of the public, information of this nature may contain data that could cause unrest in the community. It is the responsibility of the police to help maintain a safe community for all and therefore the public interest test falls in favour of none disclosure.