Rapes increase by 29% as overall crime falls in England and Wales

The number of rapes reported to and recorded by police in England and Wales are at their highest ever level, official figures have shown. 

There were 22,116 recorded rapes in the year to June, a rise of 29% on the year before, police figures released by the Office for National Statistics show.

Victims are "more willing" to report rape, Crime Minister Norman Baker said. Separate statistics from the Crime Survey for England and Wales showed overall crime fell by 16% to 7.1m.

The overall figure covers crimes against households and adults in England and Wales, and it is at its lowest level since the survey began in 1981. John Flatley, head of crime statistics at the ONS, told the BBC the increase in recorded rapes was driven by two main factors.

"We have seen over the last few years a notable rise in victims coming forward to report historical offences. "But this recent set of figures shows quite a change in that pattern, with 73% of the rise due to current offences.

 "So victims are coming forward now to report recent occurrences rather than historical ones and it's certainly the case the police are taking action to improve their recording and handling of rape investigations."

The ONS figures also showed a 48% increase in knife-point rapes, from 199 to 294.

'Less worried about crime' 

Crime Prevention Minister Norman Baker said alleged victims were now more willing to come forward than in the past.

He added: "We've improved the police recording of these terrible crimes and consequently we're now seeing an official increase."

Overall, police-recorded crime was stable, though fraud and shoplifting increased. Hate crime showed an increase of 5% to 44,480 incidents in the year-long period, up from 42,236 the previous year.

Race hate crimes were also up 4% to 37,484 incidents and religious hate crimes were up 45% to 2,273 offences. BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said statisticians believed this was driven by higher levels of hate crime in the wake of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in May last year. On the overall crime figure, Mr Baker said the government was "cracking crime".

He said: "The public at large can have confidence that this is going in the right direction. I think people are less worried about crime than they were."

Thursday's figures do not cover Scotland and Northern Ireland. The overall crime rate rose by 1.7% in Northern Ireland in the 12 months to the end of August. In March, the Scottish government said crime had fallen by 22% in four years.