14-year-old girls report rape more than any other age group

Police are receiving more reports of rape from 14-year-old girls than any other age group, data reveal, as the 1,000 men who pose the biggest threat to women are to be targeted in a new crackdown.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will announce at the Labour conference on Saturday plans to set up a national centre for public protection staffed by 4,500 officers and tasked with “ruthlessly pursuing” perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

Ms Cooper has described the surge in domestic violence and sexual offences as a “national emergency” that she has pledged to tackle by treating it as seriously as terrorism.

Official figures show that almost a third of female rapes reported to the police involved girls aged 18 and under in the year to March.

Data on female rape victims disclosed by 31 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales show that 1,458 girls aged 14 reported a rape to the police in 2023-24, more than any other age group. The figures suggest that rape victims are getting younger, as in the previous year the largest group reporting the crime were 15-year-olds.

Of the total 31,603 rapes reported by female victims to the 31 police forces, 9,928 involved girls aged 18 and under.

The new centre will start by identifying and targeting the 1,000 men who pose the greatest danger to women and girls across the country and provide police forces with the specialist training, expertise and technical capability needed to improve investigations into violence committed by men.

It mirrors an approach pioneered by the Met Police, which used data to identify the 100 “most dangerous” men in London who prey on women and children.

Officers have been gathering data on tens of thousands of men recently convicted of domestic assault, rape, sex offences, stalking, and harassment.

Announcing the scheme, Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, said the aim was to crack down on men who are violent predators by adopting “counter-terrorism and organised crime” tactics, including using intelligence to build a list of tens of thousands of violent male offenders and to target the 100 most dangerous men.

Ms Cooper’s new national protection centre is part of plans to meet Labour’s target of halving violence against women and girls within a decade. It will be based in the College of Policing and be staffed by 4,500 officers trained in investigating the complexities of violence against women and girls.

The centre will be led by Maggie Blyth, the deputy chief executive of the College of Policing and the national police lead for tackling violence against women. It will also use counter-terrorism-style data analysis and covert tactics to target the most serious offenders.

Other measures already announced by Ms Cooper include specialist rape courts, new powers to ban domestic abusers from contacting their victims for life and installing domestic abuse investigators in each 999 police control room.

Labour said it would also attempt to change boys’ attitudes towards women through its plans to set up a network of Young Futures hubs. Backed by £100 million a year, the hubs will provide targeted programmes in every area to identify the young people most at risk of being drawn into violent crime, including sexual crime, and build a package of support that responds to the challenges they face, including mental health problems.

Ms Cooper told The Times: “If we’re seeing this as a 10-year mission we have to make sure that the girls and boys who are starting primary school at the moment are not being let down in the same way in 10 years’ time and that’s why this has to be a mission really for the whole of government.”

In a speech to the Labour Party’s women’s conference in Liverpool, Ms Cooper will say: “On my watch, if you hurt and abuse women, the police will be after you. The era of impunity is over. I want police officers to use every tool in their arsenal. And to strain every sinew to keep women safe.”