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WQ.438/2021
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS BY DEPUTY M.R. HIGGINS OF ST. HELIER
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 25TH OCTOBER 2021 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 1ST NOVEMBER 2021
Question
Will the Minister advise what steps are taken to ensure that the States of Jersey Police –
- records all allegations of grooming by paedophiles, whether received by oral, written or electronic means;
- follows up on all such complaints; and
- passes on to the Law Officers' Department all this information so that it is presented to the Courts, if and when an individual is prosecuted?
Answer
- The States of Jersey Police (SOJP) apply the National Crime Recording Standards which state:
All reports of incidents, whether from victims, witnesses or third parties and whether crime related or not, will, unless immediately recorded as a crime, result in the registration of an auditable incident report by the police.
An incident will be recorded as a crime (notifiable offence) for victim related offences' if, on the balance of probability: (a) the circumstances of the victims report amount to a crime defined by law (the police will determine this, based on their knowledge of the law and counting rules); and (b) there is no credible evidence to the contrary immediately available.
A belief by the victim, or person reasonably assumed to be acting on behalf of the victim, that a crime has occurred is usually sufficient to justify its recording.
Once recorded, a crime will remain recorded unless additional verifiable information is found and documented which determines that no notifiable crime has occurred or crimes are transferred or cancelled i.e., where crimes are created in error, or as a duplicate of an existing crime.
- All such complaints which are recorded as crimes will be followed up and investigated by SOJP. Those that do not amount to a crime will be dealt with as intelligence if appropriate.
- Should a crime under investigation pass the evidential threshold, then a file will be passed to the Law Officers' Department for consideration of charge. Under the rules of disclosure all material/information will be presented to the prosecutor. The prosecutor will then decide what is disclosed to the defence and the courts in accordance with the Criminal Procedure (Jersey) Law 2018.