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01
Oct
Just 5% of rape and sex offences reports in North Yorkshire led to a charge, figures show
Just 5% of rape and sexual offences reports made to North Yorkshire Police led to a charge or summons in the last year, according to recently published figures.
A total of 1,510 reports were made to the force in 2024, but only 69 led to a charge or summons.
The figures, which were obtains by the law firm Sexual Abuse Compensation Advice under the freedom of information act, also show that the number of reports fell from a high of 1,909 in 2022.
Lucy Duckworth, policy advisor at The Survivors Trust charity, said the data showed that the system was not “delivering for victims”.
The police figures cover 23 separate offences including rape, sexual grooming, exposure and voyeurism and abuse of children through sexual exploitation.
North Yorkshire Police's Alverton Court headquarters
In 2022, 1,909 rape and sexual offences were reported to North Yorkshire Police, before this number dropped to 1,660 a year later.
Over the past year, the force has seen a decrease in reported offences, with the total standing at 1,510.
Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police has seen a year-on-year drop in the number of offenders charged, from 197 charges three years ago to 68 in 2024.
The figures were also broken down by police area. A total of 1,425 offences were reported in Harrogate between 2022 and 2025.
The highest reported areas were Scarborough and Ryedale with 2,408.
Ms Duckworth said more needed to be done to tackle the symptoms of abuse, rather than “the abuse itself”.
She said:
I think we need a huge cultural and societal shift, such as making it mandatory for all police and frontline staff to have training in working with survivors of sexual violence, because we are now looking at around 14 million adult survivors in this country.
A lot of this comes down to the ‘victim-blaming’ culture that exists within our society, which, of course, puts people off.
One of the main problems is that we intervene once the offence has already happened, we have got to stop trying to address the symptoms of abuse rather than the actual abuse itself.
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