FOI 388848

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 388848

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 10^th February 2025.  Please find below the response to your request:

How many incidents of harassment were reported by women in each of the following years respectively; 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024?

How many reports of harassment were made by women in the following years respectively; 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 led to a charge?

Reply

West Mercia Police hold the requested information.

Caveats: The data has been provided in three tables, the first shows the total number of harassment offences.  The second shows the number of harassment offences which have a linked victim who has been listed as female.  Please note that harassment offences can have multiple victims, it is therefore possible that some of these offences also have a linked victim who is male or has an unknown gender.  It is not mandatory for a victim’s gender to be recorded, results have been discounted for those which are recorded as male and those where the gender is unknown/undisclosed or not recorded.  The third table shows the number of offences which have been closed with an outcome type of 1 or 1a which means at least one suspect linked to the investigation has been charged with an offence linked to the behaviour. 

Harassment is considered to be a course of conduct of offence and therefore under the Home Office Crime Recording Standards Principle Crime Rule if other crimes between the suspect and victim are disclosed at the same time they would likely all be recorded under one investigation, that being recorded as harassment.  Where there is evidence to charge one of the related crimes (for example a criminal damage linked to the harassment) the outcome type 1 cannot be linked to the harassment crime and a further crime should be recorded.  In this scenario the investigation would not appear in the third table.