How many reported cases of sexual assault in each of the last three years have been subject to a diversion from prosecution.

The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding sexual assault cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.For consistency, the Scottish Government’s classification of “sexual assault” has been adopted.Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed or is still considered ongoing.The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of sexual assault (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.Year2022-20232023-20242024-2025TotalNumber of sexual assault cases where diversion marked as completed or ongoing443133108Total number of sexual assault cases reported to COPFS1,5421,5681,4504,560Of the 108 cases, 85 involved individuals who were children (under 18) at the time of the offending