FOI 0271-2025/26 - Ethnicity of suspects charged in cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

Request

Q1.Ethnicity of suspects charged in cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects charged with a sexual offence or offences against a victim or victim aged under 18 at the time of the offence, where the case involved two or more offenders or suspected offenders, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects charged
• Number of Black suspects charged
• Number of White suspects charged
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects charged
• Number of suspects charged where ethnicity is Unknown

Please indicate whether suspects’ ethnicity is recorded based on self-defined ethnicity, ethnic appearance data or other criteria.

Timeframe: Suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ of data that you can retrieve.

Q2. Ethnicity of suspects in ongoing cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects in all cases involving two or more offenders or suspected offenders of sexual offences against a victim or victims aged under 18 at the time of the offence that were ongoing as of 17 June 2025, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects
• Number of Black suspects
• Number of White suspects
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects
• Number of suspects where ethnicity is Unknown

Please indicate whether suspects’ ethnicity is recorded based on self-defined ethnicity, ethnic appearance data or other criteria.

Q3. Ethnicity of charged suspects in cases flagged as group based child sexual exploitation

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects charged in cases flagged as “group based child sexual exploitation”, or the closest equivalent term used by your police force, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects charged
• Number of Black suspects charged
• Number of White suspects charged
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects charged
• Number of suspects charged where ethnicity is Unknown

Timeframe: Suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ of data that you can retrieve.

0288.2025-26

Q4. What I’m requesting: Asylum status of suspects charged with a sexual offence or offences against a child victim or victims, where the case involved two or more offenders or suspected offenders, broken down as follows:

• Number of suspects who were seeking asylum in the UK at the time of charge
• Number of suspects who were neither seeking asylum at the time of charge, nor were known to have previously sought asylum in the UK
• Number of suspects who had been granted asylum in the UK at the time of charge
• Number of suspects who had been refused asylum in the UK at the time of charge

Timeframe: Information on suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ worth of data that you can retrieve.

Response

Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate

relevant information.

Decision

Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) we can neither confirm nor deny if North Yorkshire Police does or does not hold the information you have requested. It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Section 12 (2) allows a public authority to refuse a request where it estimates that it would exceed to appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held.

Due to the nature of our recording systems; the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. To establish if any information relevant to your request is held by North Yorkshire Police, a manual review would be needed to determine whether any information is held or not in relation to the Asylum status of suspects involved in multi-offender crime. It is not known whether the information retrieved, if possible, would be an accurate representation or reliable set of data.

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, we may be able to provide some information for the rest of the request if you resubmit and omit Q4. Furthermore, in relation to Q3 you have stated you require cases flagged as ‘group based’ you will need to provide a figure of what you would class as a group.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.