Historical and provisional data on sexual offence convictions: FOI release

Information requested

1) For 1975-2006

• Number of people proceeded against in court, by main crime/offence
• Number of people convicted, by main crime/offence
• Resulting conviction rate (%), by main crime/offence

2) For 2024:

• Whether there is any scope to release provisional or quarterly data for 2024 (year-to-date or Q1/Q2), specifically for:
  • People proceeded against for rape, attempted rape, and other sexual offences
  • Number convicted
  • Resulting conviction rate (%)

3) For 2025 onwards:

• Is there any publicly accessible or requestable system (e.g. via SCTS, COPFS, or court registers) where concluded High Court trials for sexual offences are recorded in real time or near-real time?
• Are there any examples of researchers or organisations successfully tracking court verdicts independently via court observation, media monitoring, or public records?

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested in the attached Excel workbook.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

The Scottish Government publishes data on people prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts as Criminal Proceedings in Scotland. The most recent data available are for 2022-23 and cover the tenyear span from 2013-14 to 2022-23. Some broadly comparable older data are available from 1989-90 to 2012-13, although this will not include all of the changes and updates made to the most recent tenyear span and should be treated with caution. Some legacy data are also available prior to 1989-90 but this represents a different statistical approach and is therefore not comparable with the more recent data, although we do provide it in the attached workbook. In addition, as well as changes to statistical classifications and approaches over the requested span, Scottish law itself has seen many major changes. These should also be taken into account when interpreting this data. For example. the introduction of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 (SOSA) on 1 December 2010 fundamentally redefined sexual crime. Although note that any crimes dealt with in Scottish courts will apply the law as it stood when any offence(s) occurred and hence data from 2010-11 onwards will include a mix of SOSA and older offences. In addition, changes to other aspects of the criminal justice system will affect the comparability of non-sexual crimes over the same period. There are too many such changes to list here but note that some categories in the attached workbook represent crimes that either did not exist at the start of the time series (e.g., Threatening to or disclosing sexual images, Coronavirus restrictions etc.) or were treated under a different category previously (e.g., domestic abuse).

We are unable to provide any data from 2023-24 onwards (parts 2 and 3 of your request) at this time. See below for an explanation of some of the reasons why. Data for 2023-24 (and covering the ten-year span from 2014-15 to 2023-24) will be published later this year, and will be available at: Criminal proceedings in Scotland statistics - gov.scot.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

However, you may wish to contact the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) at Freedom of Information requests | COPFS, or the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) at https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/about-us/contact-us/freedom-of-information/, who may be able to help you.

In specific response to your requests:

1) The attached MS Excel workbook includes sheets showing people prosecuted, convicted and conviction rates, by main charge, for the period 1975 to 2022-23 (the most recent available data). Note that we are providing data covering the period from 2006 to 2022-23 as it is not correct to combine data from previous published versions of the Criminal Proceedings data to form longer time series as some aspects of the data may be updated with each publication and thus previous published iterations may not be comparable. For example, in the attached workbook we have consistently applied the same (current) crime classification system. This classification has evolved over time with the current version covering 50 categories and eight groups. See notes added to the work book for some additional caveats on longer time series Criminal Proceedings statistics, the Rape and attempted rape category and conviction rate calculations.

2) It is not possible to provide this information with the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland data set. The reasons for this are already set out in part in Annex B of Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2022-23 - gov.scot. Specifically, the data we use to produce the bulletin are drawn from Police Scotland's Criminal History System (CHS). This data set is intended primarily for use by police officers and not for statistical reporting. Although monthly extracts from the CHS are provided to us for producing the Criminal Proceedings publication, manual processing is required to add these to our data set. In addition, and in line with best statistical practice, substantial annual quality assurance checks are performed ahead of each publication. These involve a back and forth with multiple other justice partners (COPFS, Police Scotland, SCTS) and typically take weeks to months to conclude. Many of these are centred on the most serious crimes (Murder and Rape, especially). Furthermore, and as noted in Annex B, cases may continue to be revised after they have concluded in court. Such updates disproportionately effect the most serious and complex cases. Typically these will again be high court cases, the majority of which are Murder and Rape. This is why we note each year that figures for the most recent reporting year are likely to be updated in the following publication. In short, a faster publication timeline would likely mean publishing an incomplete data set without rigorous quality assurance and hence risks producing potentially unreliable data. You may wish to try contacting COPFS or SCTS directly (see links above) to see if they are able to provide anything from their own management information statistics.

3) We are not aware of any such systems, but you may wish to contact COPFS or SCTS directly (see links above). We are also unable to provide a comprehensive list of research performed by external bodies or what techniques they may have used. However, you may be interested in this work published by The University of Edinburgh Law School: The Use of Sexual History Evidence and 'Sensitive Private Data' in Scottish Rape and Attempted Rape Trials.pdf. See page 14 for a summary of their methods.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500476713 - Information released - Excel workbook

File type

Excel document

File size

118.4 kB