HC Deb 07 February 1989 vol 146 c580W
Sir Eldon Griffiths

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish in theOfficial Report the number of rapes reported to the police in the administrative county of Suffolk during each of the years1979 to 1988 and the number of convictions obtained after prosecutions.

Mr. John Patten

The number of offences of rape recorded by the police in each police force area is published annually in table S3.1 of "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales, Supplementary Tables, Volume 3", a copy of which is in the Library of the House. The number of offences of rape recorded by the Suffolk constabulary in January to September 1988 was 37. Information held centrally, which may be incomplete, shows five persons convicted of rape in 1979, three in 1983 and three in 1987; provision of corresponding figures for other years would involve disproportionate cost.