News / Society

Official UK data point to record number of sex crimes in 2014

Sunday, 25 January 2015 9:15 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 25 January 2015 9:15 AM ]

Former British TV personality and child abuse offender Jimmy Savile

New British government figures have revealed that more Britons than any time in the past are reporting sex crimes in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

According to the statistics released Friday by the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS), in the year ending in September 2014, over 24,000 cases of rape and nearly 500,000 other sexual crimes were reported across the country, marking the highest rate of sexual assault ever recorded within a year in Britain.

The figures further indicate that there was a 22-percent rise in reported sexual offenses throughout the country since 2013.

The UK’s Home Office has attributed the rising number of sexual crimes reporting to the ‘Jimmy Savile effect,’ referring to a British DJ and state television presenter who sexually abused and raped hundreds of children in the 1970s and 80s.

However, the scope of Savile’s sexual abuse of minors was only exposed decades later in 2012, leading to a still-ongoing police probe into historic child sex abuse, code named Operation Yewtree.

As a result of the investigation, according to Crime Prevention Minister Lynne Featherstone, more victims were likely to come forward with their allegations of abuse.

The increased number of cases of sexual crimes in the UK comes as the definition of sexual abuse has expanded, mostly due to the advent of online social media networks, leading to wider distribution of child pornography via the so-called ‘Dark Web’ services.

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