Sexual offences by age of victim under 18 years old (FOI)

Request

I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011:

A

The number of recorded sexual offences against children aged under 18, for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, broken down by age and gender of victims.

B

The number of recorded sexual offences against under 18s for the above time frame that had a cyber-flag attached.

Response

A

In order to protect the identity of these young vulnerable victims, numbers less than 5 (<5) will not be disclosed (please see Article 25(2) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 below).

To produce some meaningful figures, the ages for male victims have been grouped into three categories, 0-6 years, 7-12 years and 13-17 years. Female victims will be grouped 0-6, and 7-12 years.

The total number of sexual offences recorded against persons under 18 for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 was 78.  

B

A Cyber flag is attached if the offence involves the use of electronic devices and in the above cases includes: Possession / distribution of indecent images and grooming offences. For these two offences the total for the time period requested is eight.

Article applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.