Up to a third of sexual assaults committed by migrants in 2024

Research by the Centre for Migration Control shows that foreign nationals accounted for up to 34% of convictions for "sexual assault on a female" last year

New research conducted by the Centre for Migration Control has revealed that in 2024 foreign nationals accounted for between 28% and 34% of convictions for “sexual assault on a female” across England and Wales.

It also shows that foreign nationals accounted for a quarter of all “rape of a female over 16” convictions last year, despite them accounting for roughly just 10.9% of the population.

Across all sexual offence categories, there were 1,118 known foreign national convictions which accounted for 15% of convictions which, when “unknown” nationalities are added, could take the true figure as high as 22% of the total number of sexual offence convictions.

The findings come as the Centre for Migration Control launches a new campaign urging parliamentarians to introduce an immigration “red list” - as recently introduced by US President Donald Trump - to make it much harder for migrants from “high risk” countries to reach the UK.

About the data

This data was drawn from the Police National Computer by the Ministry of Justice following an FOI by the Centre for Migration Control. The request read as follows:

“I wish to make a Freedom of Information request. Please provide information on the total number of convictions recorded across England and Wales for the calendar year 2024, as well as this information broken down by notifiable offence type and nationality.

e.g. Violence against the person: Spanish 76, Finnish 14 and so forth.

If possible, please also further breakdown the information within the "sexual offence" category by the sub-offence types within this grouping e.g. rape, unlawful contact with a minor, grooming, voyeurism. Please also provide the info for each of these sub-grouping by nationality. e.g. rape: Belgian 9, Honduran 2 and so forth.”

Sexual assault on a female

Of the 1,453 sexual assault convictions which took place - 380 were of foreign nationals whilst a further 118 were of nationalities recorded as “unknown” and thus a number will be foreign nationals.

This would mean that, including those with “unknown” nationalities, foreign nationals accounted for up to 34.27% of all convictions for “sexual assault on a female”.

If we were to remove “unknown” nationalities from the dataset, foreign nationals would still account for 28.46% of these types of conviction.

Owing to considerations of confidentiality, the Ministry of Justice replaced those nationalities with fewer than five convictions with “c”. These account for 127 convictions which, although we do not know their exact distribution across the different foreign national groups, are confirmed by the MoJ as having taken place by non-British citizens.

A further 206 convictions were attributed to 20 foreign national groups:

1. India 38

2. Romania 27

3. Poland 27

4. Pakistan 20

5. Afghanistan 19

6. Sudan 16

7. Bangladesh 14

8. Iraq 12

9. Iran 12

10. Lithuania 11

11. Nigeria 10

12. Italy 9

13. Syria 8

14. Eritrea 8

15. Latvia 7

16. Bulgaria 7

17. Turkey 6

18. Spain 6

19. Portugal 6

20. Egypt 6

The figures would mean that the conviction rate for foreign nationals is 5.75 per 100,000 of the population and 1.77 per 100,000 for the British population - a conviction rate which is 224% higher. In other words, foreign nationals are convicted for sexual assault on a female at a rate 2.24 times higher than the British population.

Even if we adjust the overall populations of the British and foreign nationals just to include those of working age (16 - 64), foreign nationals have a rate which is 150% higher at 7.3 per 100k compared to 2.9 per 100k.

Rape of a female aged 16 or over

The research also shows that foreign nationals accounted for up to a quarter of all rape convictions in 2024.

Of the 720 convictions for “rape of a female aged 16 or over”, 155 were of foreign nationals and a further 42 were of an “unknown” nationality. 523 were attributed to individuals whose nationality was listed as either “United Kingdom”, “England”, “Scotland” or “Wales” (72.6%).

If we exclude those of an “unknown” nationality from the dataset, then 22.86% of rape convictions were of foreign nationals. If we join the “unknown” nationals to the foreign national data, then this would mean that up to 27.3% of rape convictions last year were of migrants.

Owing to confidentiality reasons we are only able to see the convictions attributable to 9 foreign nationalities. These are:

Nigeria 10

Pakistan 10

Romania 10

Sudan 9

Afghanistan 8

India 7

Syria 7

Albania 6

Iraq 6

The figures mean that the conviction rate for foreign nationals is 2.3 per 100,000 of the population and 0.97 per 100,000 for the British population - a conviction rate which is 142% higher.

Age adjusted, the conviction rate for foreign nationals is 3.01 per 100k compared to 1.61 per 100k for British nationals. This would make the foreign national conviction rate 86% higher.

Total sexual offence convictions

There were a total of 7,874 sexual offence convictions in 2024 of which there were 1,118 known foreign national convictions and a further 614 with an “unknown” nationality. This would mean that foreign nationals accounted for between 15% and 22% of sexual offence convictions in 2024 (depending on the classification of those “unknown” convictions).

The worst offending nationalities, in raw numbers are:

India 100

Romania 92

Poland 83

Pakistan 55

Afghanistan 43

Nigeria 40

Sudan 37

Bangladesh 34

Portugal 33

Iran 30

Iraq 26

Italy 26

Lithuania 26

Syria 25

The figures mean that the conviction rate for British nationals is 1.13 per 10k, whereas for foreign nationals it is 1.69 per 10k, a rate which is 48.7% higher. If we include “unknown” convictions in the data, then the conviction rate for foreign nationals is 130.3% higher (1.13 per 10k compared to 2.62 per 10k).

Population figures.

These figures come despite the foreign national population of England and Wales being estimated at 9.3% in 2021 (using annual population survey data). Using ONS data on immigration and emigration to the United Kingdom (note: not England and Wales meaning we have been overly generous in the size of the foreign national population in E&W and will thus make figures more conservative), along with Home Office data on citizenship grants, we can roughly calculate that the foreign national population as of the start of 2024 was 6.6m (or 10.9% of the population).

However, several years on from the collection of the most recent nationality data, and owing to the absence of exit checks for foreign nationals emigrating from the UK, any attempt to do a per capita rate on an individual basis would likely require unverifiable assumptions regarding attrition rates of different national groups. As such, the best level of analysis can only take place at the broad level of “foreign nationals” vs “British nationals”.

It is of course worth noting that a significant number of foreign born people have been awarded British citizenship in recent years and are thus likely inflating the actual British conviction rate.