Written question asked by Lord Campbell-Savours (Labour), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Labour) on Thursday, 30 November 2006.

Crime: Rape

Question: asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether ““no crime”” designation under police logging arrangements for rape cases are entered into national statistics on rape.

Answer: If an offence of rape is ““no crimed”” then that is reported monthly on the recorded crime return made to the Home Office. However, offences which have been ““no crimed”” do not feature in the recorded crime statistics published by the Home Office. Once any offence has been recorded, it should be classified as a ““no crime”” only if one of the following criteria is satisfied: the crime was committed outside the jurisdiction of the police force in which it was recorded; where following the report of an incident which has subsequently been recorded as a crime, additional verifiable information is available which determines that no notifiable crime has been committed; if the crime, as alleged, constitutes part of a crime already recorded; if the reported incident was recorded as a crime in error. Further explanation of the ““no crime”” principle is contained in Section C of the Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime. A copy of the rules is available at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/countgeneral06.pdf.

Secondary information