FOI REF: FOI/2023/4993
You asked
I would like to access all recorded charges and convictions for procuring an illegal abortion under both section 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Ideally I would like this to be over the last decade, so from 2013 onwards.
If possible, it would also be great to have the statistics for the number of police investigations into the procurement of illegal abortions under the same Act. Again, this would be great to have from 2013 onwards.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We do not hold information relating to charges and convictions for offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, or police investigations into potential offences committed.
Data relating to charges for offences issued by the police in England and Wales are collected and published by the Home Office; these are available in the "Outcomes open data" available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables.
Data relating to convictions for offences in England and Wales are collected and published by the Ministry of Justice; these are available in the "Outcomes by offence data tool" available in their year ending December editions of their "Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly" releases. The latest edition of this release is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2021.
You may wish to contact the Home Office (via: crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk) or the Ministry of Justice (via: CJS_Statistics@justice.gov.uk) for further information or assistance. You may also wish to contact individual police forces; they may be to help with the police investigations part of your enquiry.
If you have any other crime-related queries in the future, you can email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk.