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RNZ News
28-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
More sexual assault victims making police reports, some experts credit Me Too movement
More sexual assault victims are making police reports, and a victims' advocate is crediting the Me Too movement. Photo: 123RF Warning: This story contains references to sexual assault. The proportion of adult sexual assault victims making police reports has more than quadrupled since 2018, and a victims' advocate is crediting the Me Too movement. In 2018, seven percent of sexual assault victims went to the police but that rose to 32 percent last year, the Ministry of Justice's Crime and Victims Survey data revealed. The number of victims reporting grew from 5000 to 28,000, and the number of assaults reported grew from 9000 to 51,000. Around two percent of adults have been sexually assaulted and that stayed steady in the last six years, it showed. The ministry's 'Key Stories' report - a deep dive into some of the survey results - showed more people perceived sexual assaults as serious crimes, said its sector insights general manager, Rebecca Parish. "We're largely putting that down to an increased awareness through campaigns like the Me Too campaign, White Ribbon, also reporting on some higher profile cases that are going through the courts ... understanding of exactly what sexual assault encompasses, and that it's not okay," she said. There is a caveat to the data: the trend over time is not consistent. "Reporting rates for sexual assault are relatively volatile and additional years of reporting data will be important for verifying this trend," the report said. While the increase in reporting of sexual assault was significant, it still meant 68 percent of victims stayed silent. Last year, 22 percent of victims who did not report an assault to police said they did not think police could do anything. "This belief is reasonable," the report said. It noted in 2021 police laid charges for only 40 percent of reported sexual assaults. Of those, 12 percent resulted in a conviction and nearly 70 percent of victims waited at least two years for an outcome in court. The executive director of sexual abuse prevention and survivor support organisation HELP Auckland, Kathryn McPhillips, said the rise in reporting was more than she expected. The country was "some years into a significant period of change", she said, thanks to campaigns like those Parish noted, and government investment. HELP Auckland executive director Kathryn McPhillips. Photo: Photo / Sarah Robson But McPhillips believed one of the reasons people did not report being assaulted was that they viewed the justice system as slow and adversarial. Waiting years to be heard, then taking the stand and being accused of lying was a tough ask, she said. "Lots of people ... if they report it, they don't start healing till after the process has ended because it's kind of like holding your breath. "You know you're still going to have to go through this re-traumatising process." A change in courtroom procedure for sexual assault cases would help by having the judge ask most of the questions and lawyers only pose supplementary ones, she said. McPhillips also said the successful pilot of specialist sexual violence courts in Auckland and Whangārei was due to be rolled out nationally, but she did not know where it had got to. "If that could happen, that would certainly make a difference." A June 2019 report evaluating the pilot said there was "unanimous support" for it to be extended to courts across the country. RNZ has asked the Ministry of Justice for further comment. A higher proportion of victims also needed to seek medical help after being sexually assaulted: 20 percent in 2024, compared to 5 percent two years prior (data was not available as far back as 2018). That was unsurprising, McPhillips said. "That's certainly in line with what we're seeing of the physical violence which is happening with sexual assaults associated with people meeting up from dating apps," she said. McPhillips put that down to pornography becoming more violent. "People are using that as their sexual education, if you like, and so thinking that the things they see on screen, that it's acceptable for them to do those things to other people, which of course it's not." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Powys County Times
22-05-2025
- Powys County Times
Fraud victims let down by outdated 1960s policing structure, report finds
Victims of fraud are being let down as UK policing tries to battle '21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime' in a localised system set up in the 1960s, a report has found. Think tank the Police Foundation has called for a major overhaul of how law enforcement deals with fraud, which makes up around 40% of total crime in Britain. In the year to December 2024, there were an estimated 4.1 million incidents of fraud, up a third on the previous year, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. The Police Foundation report, published on Thursday, made a series of recommendations including setting up a UK Crime Prevention Agency and a national policing body to deal with fraud. The issue should be dealt with at a UK level alongside terrorism and serious and organised crime including economic and cyber offences, it said. It also called upon regional mayors and police and crime commissioners to take a so-called public health approach to fraud, raising awareness about how to avoid being scammed. The report concluded: 'Fraud has become the single biggest form of crime affecting people in the UK and yet our policing institutions have not caught up with the scale of that change. 'We have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime. 'As a result the police are achieving limited success and victims are receiving too little by way of service.' While the report found that a lot of prevention work needs to be done outside policing, it also called for reform of how the police deal with fraud by 2030. Michael Skidmore, head of serious crime research at the Police Foundation, said: 'Fraud is a high-volume, harmful crime, often perpetrated online by sophisticated networks that operate across police force and international borders. 'In comparison, our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model developed to tackle the local crime problems of the 1960s. 'We are calling for a wholesale shift to a prevention-focused response. 'We need a new national lead body with a ringfenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills. 'The current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 14% of fraud is reported to police or the centralised Action Fraud service. A total of 1,214,639 fraud reports were made to police in the year to March 2024, of which 3,641 ended with someone being charged with a crime. Research by report sponsor Virgin Media O2 using freedom of information requests suggested that only 6% of reports to Action Fraud were passed to police forces for investigation in 2023/24. Three of the forces in England and Wales had no officers dedicated to investigating fraud, the telecoms giant found. The report also said that in March 2021 there were 866 economic crime officers in English and Welsh police forces, equal to 0.64% of the total workforce when fraud is 40% of crime. Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said the company had blocked fraudulent transactions worth more than £250 million in one year. He added: 'With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.' The report said that of 252 police officers and staff surveyed by YouGov between March 31 and April 4, 88% disagreed that police have enough resources to tackle fraud. When the author asked one unnamed senior officer what the National Fraud Squad is, a scheme set up by the previous government, they laughed, the report said. A series of recommendations in the report also includes a call for the private sector to be pushed to share data that could prevent fraud with the police. Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, national co-ordinator for economic and cyber crime for the City of London Police, said: 'The response to fraud has been improving. 'It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. 'To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.' He said that City of London Police is 'leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.'
Western Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Western Telegraph
Fraud victims let down by outdated 1960s policing structure, report finds
Think tank the Police Foundation has called for a major overhaul of how law enforcement deals with fraud, which makes up around 40% of total crime in Britain. In the year to December 2024, there were an estimated 4.1 million incidents of fraud, up a third on the previous year, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. There were more than four million incidents of fraud in the year to December 2024, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales (Gareth Fuller/PA) The Police Foundation report, published on Thursday, made a series of recommendations including setting up a UK Crime Prevention Agency and a national policing body to deal with fraud. The issue should be dealt with at a UK level alongside terrorism and serious and organised crime including economic and cyber offences, it said. It also called upon regional mayors and police and crime commissioners to take a so-called public health approach to fraud, raising awareness about how to avoid being scammed. The report concluded: 'Fraud has become the single biggest form of crime affecting people in the UK and yet our policing institutions have not caught up with the scale of that change. 'We have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime. 'As a result the police are achieving limited success and victims are receiving too little by way of service.' While the report found that a lot of prevention work needs to be done outside policing, it also called for reform of how the police deal with fraud by 2030. Our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model Michael Skidmore, Police Foundation Michael Skidmore, head of serious crime research at the Police Foundation, said: 'Fraud is a high-volume, harmful crime, often perpetrated online by sophisticated networks that operate across police force and international borders. 'In comparison, our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model developed to tackle the local crime problems of the 1960s. 'We are calling for a wholesale shift to a prevention-focused response. 'We need a new national lead body with a ringfenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills. 'The current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 14% of fraud is reported to police or the centralised Action Fraud service. A total of 1,214,639 fraud reports were made to police in the year to March 2024, of which 3,641 ended with someone being charged with a crime. Research by report sponsor Virgin Media O2 using freedom of information requests suggested that only 6% of reports to Action Fraud were passed to police forces for investigation in 2023/24. With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice Murray Mackenzie, fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2 Three of the forces in England and Wales had no officers dedicated to investigating fraud, the telecoms giant found. The report also said that in March 2021 there were 866 economic crime officers in English and Welsh police forces, equal to 0.64% of the total workforce when fraud is 40% of crime. Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said the company had blocked fraudulent transactions worth more than £250 million in one year. He added: 'With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.' The report said that of 252 police officers and staff surveyed by YouGov between March 31 and April 4, 88% disagreed that police have enough resources to tackle fraud. When the author asked one unnamed senior officer what the National Fraud Squad is, a scheme set up by the previous government, they laughed, the report said. A series of recommendations in the report also includes a call for the private sector to be pushed to share data that could prevent fraud with the police. Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, national co-ordinator for economic and cyber crime for the City of London Police, said: 'The response to fraud has been improving. 'It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. 'To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.' He said that City of London Police is 'leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.' Its officers are also working with watchdog His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to make sure local forces understand what they need to do to tackle fraud, he added.
ITV News
21-05-2025
- ITV News
Fraud victims let down by outdated 1960s policing structure, report finds
Victims of fraud are being let down as UK policing tries to battle '21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime' in a localised system set up in the 1960s, a report has found. Think tank the Police Foundation has called for a major overhaul of how law enforcement deals with fraud, which makes up around 40% of total crime in Britain. In the year to December 2024, there were an estimated 4.1 million incidents of fraud, up a third on the previous year, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. The Police Foundation report, published on Thursday, made a series of recommendations including setting up a UK Crime Prevention Agency and a national policing body to deal with fraud. The issue should be dealt with at a UK level alongside terrorism and serious and organised crime including economic and cyber offences, it said. It also called upon regional mayors and police and crime commissioners to take a so-called public health approach to fraud, raising awareness about how to avoid being scammed. The report concluded: 'Fraud has become the single biggest form of crime affecting people in the UK and yet our policing institutions have not caught up with the scale of that change. 'We have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime. 'As a result the police are achieving limited success and victims are receiving too little by way of service.' While the report found that a lot of prevention work needs to be done outside policing, it also called for reform of how the police deal with fraud by 2030. Michael Skidmore, head of serious crime research at the Police Foundation, said: 'Fraud is a high-volume, harmful crime, often perpetrated online by sophisticated networks that operate across police force and international borders. 'In comparison, our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model developed to tackle the local crime problems of the 1960s. 'We are calling for a wholesale shift to a prevention-focused response. 'We need a new national lead body with a ringfenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills. 'The current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 14% of fraud is reported to police or the centralised Action Fraud service. A total of 1,214,639 fraud reports were made to police in the year to March 2024, of which 3,641 ended with someone being charged with a crime. Research by report sponsor Virgin Media O2 using freedom of information requests suggested that only 6% of reports to Action Fraud were passed to police forces for investigation in 2023/24. With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice Murray Mackenzie, fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2 Three of the forces in England and Wales had no officers dedicated to investigating fraud, the telecoms giant found. The report also said that in March 2021 there were 866 economic crime officers in English and Welsh police forces, equal to 0.64% of the total workforce when fraud is 40% of crime. Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said the company had blocked fraudulent transactions worth more than £250 million in one year. He added: 'With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.' The report said that of 252 police officers and staff surveyed by YouGov between March 31 and April 4, 88% disagreed that police have enough resources to tackle fraud. When the author asked one unnamed senior officer what the National Fraud Squad is, a scheme set up by the previous government, they laughed, the report said. A series of recommendations in the report also includes a call for the private sector to be pushed to share data that could prevent fraud with the police. Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, national co-ordinator for economic and cyber crime for the City of London Police, said: 'The response to fraud has been improving. 'It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. 'To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.' He said that City of London Police is 'leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.' Its officers are also working with watchdog His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to make sure local forces understand what they need to do to tackle fraud, he added.
Daily Mirror
16-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Domestic abuse 'epidemic' as one in four adults have been victims
WARNING - DISTRESSING CONTENT: New figures reveal one in four adults have been been victims of domestic abuse from the age of 16 The UK is suffering a domestic abuse 'epidemic' it has been claimed after new figures reveal one in four adults have been victims. One in four adults in England and Wales are likely to have experienced domestic abuse, according to new research released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figure is greater for women, at nearly one in three, while for men it is closer to one in five. The estimates taken from the age of 16 are the first to use an improved method for measuring how much domestic abuse there is among the population. A new set of questions has been added to the ONS's Crime Survey for England and Wales. Questions about health abuse and forced marriage are now included. And they reflect recent changes in the law regarding coercive and controlling behaviour. Reacting to the new figures, the UK's leading charity for victims of domestic abuse, Refuge, said it is now an 'epidemic' and warns they are just the 'tip of the iceberg'. Gemma Sherrington, CEO of Refuge, a charity which opened the world's first safe house for women and children in 1971, said: 'We are in an epidemic of violence against women and girls, so sadly, the latest ONS estimates around the prevalence of domestic abuse come as no surprise. 'We welcome improvements to data collection, but these figures are likely to represent the tip of the iceberg as violence against women and girls remains severely under-reported.' The charity said the Government must take urgent action if it is to achieve its pledge to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade. The new ONS research also includes details on economic abuse, when someone deliberately gets a person into debt or prevents them from getting a job. The ONS now estimates that in the year to March 2024, 26.1% of adults - around one in four - had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16, the equivalent of 12.6 million people. Under the old research this was one in five. The new estimates suggest 30.3% of women and 21.7% of men surveyed in this period had experienced domestic abuse at some point since the age of 16, equivalent to 7.4 million and 5.1 million people respectively. Meghan Elkin, ONS head of crime statistics, said: 'The way domestic abuse manifests is constantly changing and is difficult to measure. In developing these questions, we have listened to victims and survivors of domestic abuse alongside a range of users from charities to academics and other government departments. '...The new approach has resulted in a higher prevalence rate as we have introduced questions to ask about types of abuse not previously covered by the crime survey, such as health abuse and forced marriage.' Health abuse includes anything from depriving a person of food and sleep, to forcing someone to terminate pregnancy. Responding to the findings, Dame Nicole Jacobs, domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, said: 'Developing new ways to further our understanding of this terrible crime so we can put in place measures to tackle it and ensure survivors receive the support they need is absolutely vital. 'I welcome the ongoing focus on domestic abuse by the ONS, as only through knowing the full picture will we be able to rid society of it for good.' Women's Aid said they were 'pleased' with the new questions which they helped develop which they point out does not rely on police reports. 'Women's Aid has for many years been concerned that the questions in the survey have failed to adequately capture the lived experience of victim-survivors of domestic abuse.'
