Recorded sex offences up 36% over five years - CSO

The number of sexual offences recorded increased by more than a third over a five-year period, but the Central Statistics Office warned that care should be taken in interpreting the statistics.

A total of 2,010 sexual offences were recorded in the State in 2013, representing a drop of 5 per cent on the 2,116 recorded the previous year.

The number of such offences recorded in 2013 was, however, over 36 per cent higher than the recorded number of offences in 2009.

Publishing crime statistics recorded by An Garda Síochána between 2009 and 2013, the CSO said its findings in a review published in June into how gardaí record crimes should be taken into account.

Caution applies

It recommended in particular that caution be applied to detection rates, given the issues cited in its June report.

Seventy-two of the 80 people convicted in sexual assault categories in 2013 were guilty of rape or sexual assault, including five convictions for defilement of a child under 17.

The other eight convictions were for offences related to child-abuse material. There were 16 convictions for murder and one for manslaughter in 2013. Eight people were convicted of dangerous driving causing death, five of whom were men in the age 25-44 bracket and two men aged 18-24. There were also 28 crimes of dangerous driving causing death recorded in 2013.

Most convictions in 2013 were of men and women in the age 25-44 category, with the majority of those (1,237 or 94 per cent) being for assaults

Some 83 homicide offences were recorded in 2013 – an increase of nearly 5 per cent on the number recorded in 2012. But the CSO said this represented a fall of over 6 per cent on the 88 homicides in 2009.

Threats to murder

There were 14,502 attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences recorded in 2013 - a decrease of nearly 8 per cent on the 15,710 recorded offences in 2012.

The CSO said the vast majority of these were assaults.

A total of 103 instances of kidnapping and related offences were recorded, including 81 related to false imprisonment and 81 concerning the abduction of a child under 16. A total of 53 of those abductions (65 per cent) were detected by gardaí, the figures show.

Publication of recorded crime statistics was resumed by the CSO in June 2015 after a comprehensive review of the accuracy of An Garda Síochána crime data. The review was carried out on foot of the Garda Inspectorate report on Crime Investigation published last November.

The CSO’s analysis found issues with the quality of the crime statistics recorded by gardaí, with incidents being incorrectly categorised or incorrectly classified as ‘detected’.

The statistics body said in June it would repeat its analysis at regular intervals in the future.