Rape reports in Wiltshire rise

Members of the Police and Crime Panel, a body made up of councillors from Swindon and Wiltshire councils as well as co-opted non-councillors, heard from the Wiltshire and Swindon Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Wilkinson on Thursday. Mr Wilkinson said reducing violence and serious harm to the person was one of the force’s highest priorities, and there was an emphasis on cutting violence against women and girls, and rape and serious sexual offences. He said: “We are making significant progress on violence against women and girls and threats and intimidation of women and girls.”

Swindon and Wiltshire PCC Philip Wilkinson (Image: OPCC) He pointed out that looking at one single statistic could be misleading and said: “Rapes recorded are up by 24 per cent, but the number of victims withdrawing their complaints is going down and the conviction rate has gone up from three per cent to 13/14 per cent. “That’s significantly better than ever before.

So while we need to be careful with the statistics we are doing much better, not that we are ever complacent about this.” Mr Wilkinson’s report revealed that up to July 2023, 17 police forces saw an increase in rape and serious sexual offences, but Wiltshire saw a 2.8 per cent decrease compared to the previous period. The overall number of rapes and serious sexual offences has dropped by nearly eight per cent in the 12 months to October 2023, when it stood at 1,107, down from just about 1,200 in the previous year.

The Wiltshire force is also having more effect: further action, including arrests and prosecutions, was taken on 12.3 per cent of reported serious sexual offences, an increase of nearly five per cent. Action was taken on eight per cent of rape complaints, an increase of two per cent on the previous year. Domestic violence against women and girls went up during the year 2020, particularly during the Covid-19 lockdowns and levels of domestic abuse have stayed high.

Mr Wilkinson told the panel: “Domestic abuse crimes for the month of September 2023 decreased to 582, down by 3.7 per cent. The rolling 12-month further action taken rate reached 12.4 per cent and arrest rate 41.2 per cent, up 9.9 per cent year-on-year. “The volume of DA crimes between October 2022 – September 2023 were 9.06 per cent, or 600, higher than in 2019.

This equates to an average of 50 additional crimes per month.”