Harassment: Prosecutions
The question
To ask the Solicitor General, what information her Department holds on the number of (a) prosecutions brought and (b) successful prosecutions in relation to offences contrary to Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 in each year since 1995.
Answered by Lucy Rigby
The table below shows the number of offences charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by way of section 4A (intentional harassment, alarm or distress) in which a prosecution commenced from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2024. These figures relate to the number of offences charged and not the number of individual defendants.
The CPS does not hold data showing the number of defendants prosecuted and convicted of offences created by the Public Order Act 1986, including section 4A. To establish the number of defendants charged pursuant to and convicted under section 4A would require a manual review of case files and this would be at disproportionate cost.
Calendar Year | Public Order Act 1986 { 4A(1) and (5) } |
2004 | 4,524 |
2005 | 5,349 |
2006 | 6,077 |
2007 | 6,651 |
2008 | 6,892 |
2009 | 7,151 |
2010 | 8,329 |
2011 | 8,278 |
2012 | 8,140 |
2013 | 8,269 |
2014 | 9,790 |
2015 | 10,878 |
2016 | 11,038 |
2017 | 11,969 |
2018 | 11,620 |
2019 | 10,882 |
2020 | 9,616 |
2021 | 12,299 |
2022 | 11,560 |
2023 | 10,797 |
2024 | 11,693 |
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | |
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