Majority of sexual assault victims known to suspected offender – figures

The vast majority of victims in cases of sexual assault offences and assaults were known to the suspected offender, according to figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The CSO released its statistics on crime victims and suspected offenders based on recorded crime data collected by gardai.

It shows that seven in 10 victims of sex offences knew their attacker, while two out of three victims of assault, threats to murder and harassment also knew the offender.

The results also showed that nearly two-thirds of sexual offences reported by victims in 2023 were within a year of occurrence, but one out of every five offences reported referred to incidents that occurred more than 10 years earlier.

The figures also showed that for just over a fifth of victims of sexual offences, the suspected offender was a friend or acquaintance, and was a blood relative in 14% of cases.

Current or former intimate partners or spouses accounted for 7% of all suspected offenders for this type of offence.

The suspected offender was a stranger to the victim in about three out of every 10 detected offences, the CSO statistics showed.

In 2023, about three in 10 victims of historic (more than a year after offence) sexual offences were males under 18 years of age when the crime incident occurred, compared with about a half for female victims.

But when it came to the time of reporting the offence, 16% of victims were females under 18 years of age compared with 5% for male victims.

Furthermore, nearly a quarter (23%) of victims were men aged 30 or more at the time of reporting, compared with just over a third (36%) for female victims.

Nearly two-thirds of victims of sexual offences in 2023 reported the incident within a year of occurrence, while one in five reported the incident more than 10 years after it occurred.

Men tended to take longer than women to report incidents of sexual offences.

Male victims accounted for 12% of sexual offences reported within a year compared with 88% for females.

But for incidents reported after a year, 31% of victims were male and 69% were female.

One in eight sexual offences in 2022 involved a male suspected offender and a female victim, while one in five involved both a male suspected offender and male victim.

In 2023, about half of all victims of reported incidents of sexual offences were aged under 18 when the offence occurred.

Nearly three out of 10 victims were aged between 18 and 29 when the incident occurred, while the remainder – 22% – were 30 or over.

Just over six in 10 murder or manslaughter offences reported in 2022 involved both a male suspected offender and male victim, while about a fifth involved a male suspected offender and female victim.

The suspected offender and victim were both men in about half of attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and of related offences.

Furthermore, nearly three out of 10 such detected crime incidents involved a male suspected offender and female victim.

Six out of 10 victims of attempts or threats to murder, assaults and harassments in 2023 were aged 18 to 44 when the incident occurred.

Nearly three in 10 were aged between 18 and 29, while just under a fifth were aged 45-59, and 14% were under 18 when the incident occurred.

A third of victims of reported dangerous driving leading to death offences in 2023 were under 18 years when the offence occurred.

One fifth of victims of murder or manslaughter were under 30 years of age and it was much the same for victims aged 60 years or more.