Reports of sexual assaults on trains in Britain have nearly doubled in the past five years, with the vast majority of perpetrators escaping justice.
In 2018, staff and passengers reported 2,628 cases of sexual assault, nearly doubling the 1,402 cases that were recorded five years ago, the Mirror reports.
An average of seven sex crimes were reported per day, while children were the victims in 215 separate cases.
Despite the rise in reported sexual assaults, the number of perpetrators who end up being prosecuted has remained mostly unchanged. Just 402 of the reported cases last year led to prosecutions, just a few more than the 380 that occurred in the 2014-2015 period.
The data obtained by the tabloid included all crimes which fall under the Sexual Offenses Act such as sexual assault, rape, groping, flashing, and other ‘indecent acts’.
In response to the disturbing trend, Andrea Simon, the head of public affairs for the End Violence Against Women Coalition said, “It’s not enough to just encourage the reporting of sexual harassment and assaults, alongside this we need to be proactively identifying offenders and stopping them.”
Transport for London (TfL) said: “Incidents of sexual misconduct are more common in the day, with the longer, busier lines seeing more offenses.”
Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, has blamed the problem partially on the ‘Tory drive to remove guards from trains’.
“These figures underline how important a properly staffed railway is for passenger safety,” McDonald added.
Sex crimes aren’t the only class of crime to increase drastically in recent years. This summer, Voice of Europe reported on the significant increase in knife crime that has been seen in the past year, in the United Kingdom.
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