There has been a small increase in the number of Domestic Abuse incidents in Bexley during the year 2023 in comparison to 2022. This is expected and an ongoing result of coming out of lockdown and increased awareness.

Domestic Abuse Offences is a subcategory of Domestic Abuse Incidents and Domestic Abuse Violence with Injury is a further subcategory of Domestic Abuse Offences.

The overall rate of Domestic Abuse has increased in Bexley from 161.19 per 10,000 population in 2022 to 166.06 in 2023. As a result of this increase, Bexley’s position in London for Domestic Abuse has changed from 13 to 16. 

The overall number of sexual offences in Bexley has decreased slightly from 511 offences in 2022 to 509 offences in 2023.

Sexual Offences are split into two sub-categories: 1) Rape, and 2) Other Sexual Offences. Other Sexual Offences include everything else from exposure and voyeurism to touching, including over clothes, and offences that cause or incite sexual activity, those linked to prostitution, spiking, incest, etc.

In Bexley we saw an increase in ‘Rape Offences’ and a decrease in ‘Other Sexual Offences’ in the year 2023 compared to 2022.

The crime rate for sexual offences has slightly decreased over the last year in comparison to 2022.

Comparatively with other London Boroughs, Bexley has moved up one place from seventh safest borough for sexual offences in London to sixth. 

Violence Against the Person can include violence targeted because of gender. Sub-categories of this depend on the outcome; 1) without injury, 2) with injury, and 3) homicide.

Violence with Injury includes any kind of assault where physical injury occurs. Violence without Injury includes Common Assault, Threats to Kill, Stalking and Harassment, Malicious Communications, etc.

NB: Street Level Harassment, such as calling out and beeping etc will likely be recorded and Public Order offences rather than assault without injury and are therefore not reflected in this data.

The overall number Violence Against the Person offences in Bexley has increased by 4.3% from 5,756 offences in 2022 to 6,005 offences in 2023. This increase is in line with the rise in Violence Against the Person offences across London over the past two years (4.5% increase).

Murder and Manslaughter are in the Homicide category. In Bexley, there has been an increase in Homicide in 2023 compared to 2022, though numbers are low in both years. There was an increase in Violence without Injury and Violence with Injury remained relatively stable.

Bexley’s position in London for safety in relation to Violence Against the Person has changed by one place from 9th in 2022 to 10th in 2023. As a result of the increase in crimes overall, as seen above, the crime rate too has increased overall. This seems to be in line with other London boroughs, with most seeing an increase in violent crime rate overall in 2023.

NB: Violence Against the Person may include non-VAWG related crimes within it.

This analysis demonstrates the breakdown of respondents to the survey. 184 people responded, 153 were female and 22 were non-female identifying. The typical respondent profile was a White British, heterosexual, 14-18 year old cis-woman, with no disability and of no religion. There were some male, non-binary, LGB+, ethnic minority, religious and disabled respondents, however numbers were low.

This demonstrates the average feelings of safety from violence against women and girls in Bexley is 5.89, with 10 being a feeling of complete safety. The map and ward list demonstrate how this ranges between areas, with the north and outskirts of the borough reporting lower safety from VAWG than the south and central of the borough.

47.8% of respondents said they had experienced VAWG, in one form or multiple, and 56.5% said they had witnessed VAWG, sometimes in addition to their own experiences of VAWG.

The majority of respondents said that they experienced or witnessed the VAWG incident in a public space, on public transport or in a public social venue. 56.2% of respondents also answered that the perpetrator was known to them in some way, either a partner or ex-partner, family member, work colleague, friend or other associate.  

This outlines the priority concerns our residents have – the majority being around domestic abuse, sexual and street-based offences, and less so around exploitation and honour-based offences. This also demonstrates that residents consider education of perpetrators and increased public safety tools the most important response to tackle VAWG, more so than accessibility of reporting and training for support services.