Convictions for the offence of concealment of birth (Section 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861).

Request 

How many convictions for the offence of concealment of birth (Section 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861) have there been in the last ten years?

Response

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does hold some limited information within the scope of your request.

The CPS does collate and record the volume of offences charged that reached a first hearing at the magistrates' court for the time period requested. The CPS can confirm that between the financial years 2015/16 and 2024/25 there were 16 offences charged under section 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 that reached a first hearing at magistrates’ courts which equates to 10 cases.

In order to ascertain the information relevant to your request, namely ‘How many convictions for the offence’ a manual review of those 10 cases was undertaken and we can confirm the following, albeit these figures are not to be interpreted as official statistics as highlighted in the caveats below:

1. 5 of the 10 cases resulted in the defendant being convicted of the offence.
2. 4 of the 10 cases have been destroyed in line with our Case Retention Policy and so we hold no information concerning those cases. CPS Casework Retention Schedule
3. The remaining case was discontinued and did not result in a conviction.

General Data Caveats:

1. CPS data are available through its Case Management System (CMS) and associated Management Information System (MIS). The CPS collects data to assist in the effective management of its prosecution functions. The CPS does not collect data that constitutes official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
2. Some or all of the information you requested under the FOI Act has been collated by undertaking a manual search of the CPS’ Case Management System (CMS) using unique reference numbers supplied from the department’s Management Information System (MIS). As with any large-scale recording system, both the CMS and MIS systems are subject to possible errors with data entry, processing and the manual searches undertaken.

Finally, under section 16 of the FOI Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any, information may assist you with your request. You may also find it helpful to refer your request to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), as they are the official statistics holders of sentences imposed by the courts and they publish defendant data by specific offence, which may contain more detail than we can provide.  You therefore may wish to submit a Freedom of Information request to them via the email address below:

[email protected]