EXCL: Less than half of voyeurism reports in Teesside led to an arrest
We have stats from the last four years
We can exclusively reveal that less than half of the number of voyeurism reports in Teesside over the last four years led to an arrest.
There were 118 people who got in touch with Cleveland Police - only 53 were detained - and 17 of those were under the age of 18.
We submitted a Freedom of Information request to the force to find out how many reports of voyeurism have been made in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and up to 1st October 2024, including upskirting.
- In 2020, there were 22
- In 2021, there were 28
- In 2022, there were 24
- In 2023, there were 24
- In 2024, there has been 20 so far up until 1st October
We also asked for a breakdown of the ages of the perpetrators recorded.
- Under 18 - 17
- 18 to 29 - 31
- 30-39 - 24
- 40-49 - 19
- 50-59 - 9
- 60+ - 5
We asked how many of these total reports led to arrests
- In 2020, there were 10 arrests
- In 2021, there were 14 arrests
- In 2022, there were 10 arrests
- In 2023, there were 12 arrests
- In 2024, there have been 7 arrests so far
Detective Superintendent Helen Barker is the lead for violence against women and girls and she said: "We don't know about the scale of the issue because of the very nature that voyeurism is. Somebody is trying to do it without the victims knowledge, but I think there will be an element that some victims will not come forward and report it; one out of embarrassment or two they might consider it to be trivial. We don't consider it to be trivial.
"I think it's disappointing that we've got that number of young people committing offences, but I think in terms of our young people they do use digital devices a lot. They share indecent images sadly.
"I think a lot of our young people don't understand the implications of doing what they're doing, but what the evidence would show is that with those young people if we know about it, and we intervene, we can change behaviour.
"Our schools are very supportive in this area. You've got the sharing of indecent images and voyeurism is an extension of those types of offences, so I do think education is really important both in terms of not committing the offences but actually the impact that this has on other young people, if you do commit these offences.
"I'd urge you to come forward and report it. I know often for victims of sexual crimes that's not an easy thing to do particularly at the time, but it's never too late to come forward and report. We do know sadly that these offences can lead to more serioues offences, so please come forward and tell us.
"For the people who perperate these crimes, it's not a victimless crime. It has a significant impact on your victims and if we find out what you've been doing, you will be subject to arrest and you may end up with a criminal record as a result."
Jess works at the Revenge Porn Helpline and she said: "People have been recorded without their consent. I would imagine that people don't realise that it's actually against the law but also in terms of the evidence side of things, you know it's happened but you haven't got any evidence and that kind of victim blaming mentality of whether they will be believed in that sense as well.
"There's so many motivations not just revenge. They're going to record that content with the intention of threatening to share that content in the sense of having a laugh with a friend showing 'oh, look what I've done', but also on the relationship side of things, 'if you try and leave, I'll go to share this content that I've got that you didn't realise existed anyway.'
"With voyeurism you haven't taken that content yourself so it's almost that other element of lack of control and with voyeurism, you have no idea that these pictures were even created in the first place, so it can be really kind of detrimental even to kind of have that lack of trust. Your trust in someone has been damaged.
"When someone comes in saying they've been recorded without their consent essentially what we'd do is reassure them that they haven't done anything wrong in this situation. The other person who has done that has committed a crime and then obviously because crimes were committed, we do advise people to go to the police and a little bit about the evidence that they'd need to collect.
"We're a non-legal support service so if we think they might benefit from legal advice we'd signpost them. But in terms of what we can do practically at the moment, we're quite limited because we're a practical support service so we always tend to say if the images or videos were to be shared, then to get back in touch with us and we can help report them for removal."