Ref: FOI/2022/4574
You asked
I am emailing to ask to be able to access statistics for sexual assault from the year 1960 to 1990
We said
Thank you for your request.
The latest sexual offences publication we released was in 2021 and the associated tables can be found here. These covers prevalence, long term trends and types of sexual offences experienced by adults from the year ending March 2005 based on findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and year ending March 2003 based on police recorded crime. Unfortunately, we do not hold data for the period of 1960 to 1990.
We have also published data on the number of rape and sexual assault offences recorded by the police year on year between April 2002 and June 2022 in Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables in Table A4. These data contain information on sex (male/female) and age of the victim. This is published alongside our quarterly Crime in England and Wales Statistical bulletin.
However, sexual offences recorded by the police do not provide a reliable measure of trends in these types of crime. Improvements in police recording practices and increased reporting by victims have contributed to increases in recent years, although this effect is thought to be diminishing.
If you have any other crime-related queries in the future, you can email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk.