Crime & Law

Seven in every 10 victims of sexual assault knew their assailants, new CSO data finds

Suspected offender was friend or acquaintance in one fifth of cases and a blood relative in 14%

Current or former intimate partners or spouses were suspected offenders in 7 per cent of cases.

Katie Mellett
Tue Apr 30 2024 - 17:39

A majority of victims of sexual assaults and attempted murders knew their assailants, new statistics show.

The suspected offender was known to seven in every 10 victims of detected sexual offences and to two thirds of victims of attempted murder or threats to murder, assaults, harassment and related offences in 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In just over a fifth of detected sexual offences, the suspected offender was a friend or acquaintance and a blood relative in 14 per cent of cases. Current or former intimate partners or spouses were suspected offenders in 7 per cent of cases. Strangers were suspected offenders in 29 per cent of cases.

According to data collected by the Garda and analysed by the CSO, friends or acquaintances were 14 per cent of suspected offenders in attempted or threats to murder, assaults, harassment or related offences.

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Current and former intimate partners or spouses were 9 per cent and 6 per cent respectively of suspected offenders. In a third of these offences, the suspected offender was a stranger to the victim.

In 2023, 60 per cent of assault victims were men, while just over two-thirds, or 68 per cent of harassment and related offence victims were women.

The statistics show that women are more likely to report sexual offences.

Four in every five, or 81 per cent, of victims who reported sexual offences in 2023 were women. Nearly half of all women victims were under the age of 18 when the offence took place.

About three in 10 victims – some 28 per cent – of historic sexual offences in 2023 were men under the age of 18 when the incident occurred.

The statistics show that it takes men longer than women to report sexual offences. Male victims made up 12 per cent of sexual offences reported in one year and 31 per cent reported after a year.

One in five sexual offences involved a male suspected offender and a male victim in 2022, while 53 per cent of attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassment or related offences involved a male suspected offender and a male victim.

The CSO found that nearly two thirds of sexual offences reported by victims in 2023 were made within a year of the incident.

More than one in every five victims reported incidents that had occurred more than 10 years earlier.

In reported offences of dangerous driving leading to death in 2023, 32 per cent of the victims were under the age of 18.

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