Written question asked by Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru) on Monday, 10 December 2018, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 12 December 2018. It was answered by Nick Hurd (Conservative) on Tuesday, 18 December 2018 on behalf of the Home Office.

Fraud and Sexual Offences: Online Dating

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports to the police have been made of (a) sexual assaults and (b) fraud arising from contact made by individuals from online dating sites; and in how many cases those reports resulted in a prosecution in each of the last five years.

Answer

The Home Office collects data from police forces on the number of offences that have been committed in full or in part using online means.

The latest available data on online offences has been published by the Office for National Statistics in Table E4 here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesexperimentaltables.

Information on the number of sexual offences reported to the police linked to online dating sites is not held centrally.

Secondary information