You asked
During the calendar year 2018, how many investigations and proceedings into rape and sexual offences were halted due to the death of the alleged offender?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We generally publish figures that relate to victims of crime from two main sources, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime data. However, our recent publication “Sexual offending: victimisation and the path through the criminal justice system” uses a wider range of statistics from across the crime and criminal justice system.
The tables that would be most useful to you are the Home Office appendix tables which present outcomes assigned to sexual offences recorded in the year ending March 2018. HO Tables 9-12 provide a breakdown of prosecutions prevented or not in the public interest including where the alleged offender had died. These data are provided to us by the Home Office. For more information on these statistics, you can contact them directly at the following email address: CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
In addition you may wish to consult the Ministry of Justice appendix tables which present data on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing for sexual offences in England and Wales for the year ending December 2017. MOJ Table 5 provides information on defendants for trial at the Crown Court by sexual offence group and outcome type including those ‘not tried’ which covers death of the defendant.
These data were provided to us by the Ministry of Justice. For more information, you can contact the Ministry of Justice at the following email address: statistics.enquiries@justice.gov.uk.
If you would like any further information, you can simply email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavour to help.