# Communications offences: the reports, the charges, and the arrests nobody publishes

Police in England and Wales recorded 91,987 malicious communications offences in 2025/26, down from 288,939 at the 2021/22 peak, a fall the statisticians attribute mainly to a change in counting rules rather than fewer reports. Three in every hundred closed investigations ended in a charge. The courts convicted 2,487 people under the four communications offences in 2025. The number arrested in between is published by no government department. A campaign group's Freedom of Information tally puts it at 62,199 over five years: its conviction figure reconciles with the Ministry of Justice to within one per cent, and its arrests figure can be checked against nothing at all.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/communications-offences
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/communications-offences.json

## How to read this

Three official series that do not join up, shown side by side. Recorded offences are reports the police logged under Home Office code 8R, before any suspect was identified, by financial year. Outcomes are the closing outcome of each investigation, by financial year. Prosecutions and convictions are the Ministry of Justice's Court Proceedings Database, by calendar year, counted on the principal offence, summed across section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the two Online Safety Act 2023 offences that replaced parts of them in January 2024. Arrests by offence are not published: the only arrest figures on this page are one force's own Freedom of Information disclosure and, clearly labelled, a campaign group's reported total. England and Wales only.

## Four offences, two of them new, none of them written for social media

"Communications offences" is shorthand for a small family of crimes about sending a message, not about what happened afterwards. Two date from before the web. Two arrived on 31 January 2024, when the Online Safety Act 2023 repealed the false message and threat limbs of the old offences and replaced them.

| name | detail |
|---|---|
| Communications Act 2003, section 127 | Sending, by a public electronic communications network, a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; and, until 31 January 2024, sending a false message to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety. Summary only, tried in the magistrates' court. Ministry of Justice offence code 19607. |
| Malicious Communications Act 1988, section 1 | Sending a letter, electronic communication or article that is indecent or grossly offensive, or that conveys a threat or false information, with the purpose of causing distress or anxiety. Made triable either way in 2015 with a maximum of two years. The threat and false information limbs were repealed on 31 January 2024. Ministry of Justice offence code 00872. |
| Online Safety Act 2023, section 181 | Threatening communications: sending a message that conveys a threat of death or serious harm, intending or being reckless as to whether the recipient fears it will be carried out. Triable either way, up to five years. Ministry of Justice offence code 00528, filed under endangering life. |
| Online Safety Act 2023, section 179 | False communications: sending information the sender knows to be false, intending to cause non trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience, without reasonable excuse. Summary only. Ministry of Justice offence code 13852. |

- **Note**: The police record all of these under one Home Office code, 8R Malicious Communications, so the recorded series cannot be split by statute. The courts data can.

## 91,987 offences recorded in 2025/26, 68 per cent below the peak, mostly on paper

Recorded malicious communications rose every year from 2017/18 to a peak of 288,939 in 2021/22, then fell by 38 per cent in 2023/24 alone. The Office for National Statistics attributes that fall to a change in how the police count, not to a change in what the public reports.

**Series**

| fy | n |
|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 159,826 |
| 2018/19 | 208,177 |
| 2019/20 | 228,031 |
| 2020/21 | 274,307 |
| 2021/22 | 288,939 |
| 2022/23 | 274,777 |
| 2023/24 | 170,370 |
| 2024/25 | 98,889 |
| 2025/26 | 91,987 |

**Quarterly**

| fy | q | n |
|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 1 | 35,441 |
| 2017/18 | 2 | 37,619 |
| 2017/18 | 3 | 40,929 |
| 2017/18 | 4 | 45,837 |
| 2018/19 | 1 | 48,612 |
| 2018/19 | 2 | 51,172 |
| 2018/19 | 3 | 52,579 |
| 2018/19 | 4 | 55,814 |
| 2019/20 | 1 | 54,427 |
| 2019/20 | 2 | 56,259 |
| 2019/20 | 3 | 57,250 |
| 2019/20 | 4 | 60,095 |
| 2020/21 | 1 | 61,909 |
| 2020/21 | 2 | 69,987 |
| 2020/21 | 3 | 68,179 |
| 2020/21 | 4 | 74,232 |
| 2021/22 | 1 | 74,905 |
| 2021/22 | 2 | 70,569 |
| 2021/22 | 3 | 70,653 |
| 2021/22 | 4 | 72,812 |
| 2022/23 | 1 | 69,738 |
| 2022/23 | 2 | 68,333 |
| 2022/23 | 3 | 66,230 |
| 2022/23 | 4 | 70,476 |
| 2023/24 | 1 | 56,374 |
| 2023/24 | 2 | 38,978 |
| 2023/24 | 3 | 38,982 |
| 2023/24 | 4 | 36,036 |
| 2024/25 | 1 | 27,174 |
| 2024/25 | 2 | 24,593 |
| 2024/25 | 3 | 23,195 |
| 2024/25 | 4 | 23,927 |
| 2025/26 | 1 | 23,404 |
| 2025/26 | 2 | 22,957 |
| 2025/26 | 3 | 22,349 |
| 2025/26 | 4 | 23,277 |

- **Quarter note**: By quarter, the series peaked at 74,905 in quarter 1 of 2021/22. The counting rule change took effect in May 2023, inside the first quarter of 2023/24. Recorded offences went from 70,476 in the last quarter of 2022/23 to 56,374 in the quarter of the change and 38,978 the quarter after, a fall of 45 per cent in six months with no change in the law and no known change in behaviour.
**Break quote**: text The changes in recording rules for conduct crimes (stalking, harassment and coercive and controlling behaviour) in May 2023 removed the requirement to record two crimes when one of them was a conduct crime. This has led to a reduction in those crimes often associated with conduct crimes, including malicious communications., cite Office for National Statistics, Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2024, section 10

- **Note**: Before May 2023 a victim of harassment who was also sent abusive messages generated two recorded crimes; since then, one. The series is therefore not comparable across that line, and the page draws no conclusion about demand from it. The financial year 2023/24 straddles the change.

## Recorded offences per 1,000 residents vary more than fourfold between forces

England and Wales recorded 1.49 malicious communications offences per 1,000 residents in 2025/26. The spread between forces is wide, and on this evidence it is a spread in recording practice as much as in behaviour: the same counting rule change landed at different times and to different degrees.

- **Ew rate**: 1.49
**Top**

| force | n | pop | rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metropolitan Police | 25,095 | 9,074,625 | 2.77 |
| West Midlands | 6,955 | 3,036,605 | 2.29 |
| Merseyside | 3,182 | 1,475,541 | 2.16 |
| Gwent | 1,217 | 601,686 | 2.02 |
| South Wales | 2,380 | 1,363,561 | 1.75 |
| Greater Manchester | 5,173 | 3,009,664 | 1.72 |
| Avon and Somerset | 2,952 | 1,813,665 | 1.63 |
| Durham | 1,051 | 650,500 | 1.62 |

**Bottom**

| force | n | pop | rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Humberside | 419 | 962,532 | 0.44 |
| South Yorkshire | 852 | 1,430,623 | 0.6 |
| North Yorkshire | 604 | 844,571 | 0.72 |
| Lincolnshire | 639 | 789,502 | 0.81 |
| Surrey | 1,019 | 1,248,649 | 0.82 |
| Staffordshire | 964 | 1,177,578 | 0.82 |
| Wiltshire | 637 | 767,575 | 0.83 |
| Suffolk | 664 | 786,231 | 0.84 |

- **Note**: Home Office recorded crime open data, offence code 8R, financial year 2025/26, against ONS mid 2024 population. British Transport Police is excluded as it has no resident population, and the City of London because its 15,000 residents are a fraction of its daytime population.

## Three in a hundred investigations end in a charge; four in ten end because the victim withdraws

Of 92,032 malicious communications investigations closed in 2025/26, 2,750 ended in a charge or summons, 3.0 per cent. The single largest outcome, 42.3 per cent, is the victim not supporting further action. Across the eight years of outcomes data the charge rate has stayed between 2.2 per cent (2021/22) and 3.0 per cent (2025/26): the counting rule change halved the number of investigations without moving the share that end in a charge.

**Mix**

| label | n | pct |
|---|---|---|
| Victim did not support further action | 38,918 | 42.3 |
| No suspect identified | 24,684 | 26.8 |
| Suspect identified, evidential difficulties | 20,186 | 21.9 |
| Charged or summonsed | 2,750 | 3 |
| Out of court, informal | 2,281 | 2.5 |
| Prosecution prevented or not in the public interest | 689 | 0.7 |
| Out of court, formal | 667 | 0.7 |
| Other outcomes | 1,857 | 2 |

**Charge series**

| fy | closed | charged | chargePct |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 199,530 | 4,929 | 2.5 |
| 2019/20 | 208,239 | 4,722 | 2.3 |
| 2020/21 | 272,569 | 6,360 | 2.3 |
| 2021/22 | 275,865 | 6,072 | 2.2 |
| 2022/23 | 277,100 | 6,584 | 2.4 |
| 2023/24 | 188,039 | 4,538 | 2.4 |
| 2024/25 | 105,737 | 2,790 | 2.6 |
| 2025/26 | 92,032 | 2,750 | 3 |

- **Met note**: The Metropolitan Police closed 24,271 malicious communications investigations in 2025/26, more than a quarter of the national total, with a charge rate of 1.5 per cent.
- **Note**: Home Office crime outcomes open data, offence code 8R, outcomes assigned to investigations closed in the year, all forces. The charge rate is charges as a share of closed investigations. Forces with fewer than 500 closed investigations are excluded from the force comparison.

## 2,487 convictions in 2025, about the same as 2017 once the new offences are added back

The Ministry of Justice counts 1,207 convictions under section 127 in 2025, 541 under the Malicious Communications Act, and 739 under the two Online Safety Act offences that replaced its threat and false message limbs in January 2024. Summed, the four offences have produced between 2,402 and 2,859 convictions a year since 2017.

**Series**

**Year**: 2017 · **S127 pros**: 1,505 · **S127 conv**: 1,336 · **Mca pros**: 1,720 · **Mca conv**: 1,457 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,793 · **Pros total**: 3,225

**Year**: 2018 · **S127 pros**: 1,317 · **S127 conv**: 1,133 · **Mca pros**: 1,842 · **Mca conv**: 1,587 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,720 · **Pros total**: 3,159

**Year**: 2019 · **S127 pros**: 1,148 · **S127 conv**: 1,007 · **Mca pros**: 1,732 · **Mca conv**: 1,523 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,530 · **Pros total**: 2,880

**Year**: 2020 · **S127 pros**: 969 · **S127 conv**: 853 · **Mca pros**: 1,772 · **Mca conv**: 1,549 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,402 · **Pros total**: 2,741

**Year**: 2021 · **S127 pros**: 1,187 · **S127 conv**: 1,036 · **Mca pros**: 2,124 · **Mca conv**: 1,823 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,859 · **Pros total**: 3,311

**Year**: 2022 · **S127 pros**: 1,142 · **S127 conv**: 989 · **Mca pros**: 1,992 · **Mca conv**: 1,764 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,753 · **Pros total**: 3,134

**Year**: 2023 · **S127 pros**: 1,257 · **S127 conv**: 1,090 · **Mca pros**: 1,816 · **Mca conv**: 1,627 · **Osa threat pros**: 0 · **Osa threat conv**: 0 · **Osa false pros**: 0 · **Osa false conv**: 0 · **Conv total**: 2,717 · **Pros total**: 3,073

**Year**: 2024 · **S127 pros**: 1,325 · **S127 conv**: 1,157 · **Mca pros**: 1,162 · **Mca conv**: 1,096 · **Osa threat pros**: 444 · **Osa threat conv**: 292 · **Osa false pros**: 15 · **Osa false conv**: 14 · **Conv total**: 2,559 · **Pros total**: 2,946

**Year**: 2025 · **S127 pros**: 1,403 · **S127 conv**: 1,207 · **Mca pros**: 602 · **Mca conv**: 541 · **Osa threat pros**: 1,033 · **Osa threat conv**: 722 · **Osa false pros**: 26 · **Osa false conv**: 17 · **Conv total**: 2,487 · **Pros total**: 3,064


- **Switch note**: Malicious Communications Act convictions fell from 1,627 in 2023 to 541 in 2025 while threatening communications convictions rose from nothing to 722. That is the statute book moving, not the courts: section 189 of the Online Safety Act 2023 repealed the threat limb of the 1988 Act on 31 January 2024.
**Who**: male pct 83, children 56, young adults 109, note Of those convicted in 2025, 83 per cent were male, 56 were children under 18 and 109 were young adults aged 18 to 20.

**Top forces**

| force | n |
|---|---|
| Metropolitan | 260 |
| Greater Manchester | 162 |
| South Wales | 111 |
| West Midlands | 109 |
| Cheshire | 99 |
| Merseyside | 97 |
| Essex | 93 |
| Northumbria | 88 |

**Pre2017**: note Ministry of Justice outcomes by offence tool, 2016 edition, calendar years 2006 to 2016, England and Wales, principal offence basis. In 2023 the Ministry reprocessed every year from 2017 with more accurate methods and advises caution comparing across that line, so this table is kept separate from the one above rather than joined to it. The 2016 edition also counts cautions, which the current release does not publish by offence., reading On the earlier basis, convictions under the two old offences rose fivefold, from 498 in 2006 to 2,482 in 2016. The 2017 figure on the new basis is 2,793, a step of 13 per cent across the processing change that is not a measured trend. Cautions peaked at 1,633 in 2012 and had fallen to 638 by 2016; the 1988 Act offence became triable either way, with a two year maximum, from April 2015.

**Ethnicity**: note Ethnicity is not recorded for 20 per cent of those convicted in 2025. Of those where it is, 87 per cent were White. The Ministry warns that ethnicity is recorded by the police at the point of proceedings and that the unknown share varies by force, so no comparison with the population is drawn here.

- **Note**: Ministry of Justice outcomes by offence, Court Proceedings Database, England and Wales, calendar years, principal offence basis. The Ministry advises against dividing convictions by prosecutions as a rate, because the two are counted at different stages and can fall in different years. Figures from 2017 are on a revised processing basis and are not comparable with earlier years.

## 17.8 per cent of those sentenced in 2025 went to prison, for an average of 5.9 months

The courts sentenced 2,495 people for the four offences in 2025. 443 received immediate custody. The most common outcome was a community sentence, and the average fine, where a fine was imposed, was £272.

**Mix**

| label | n | pct |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate custody | 443 | 17.8 |
| Suspended sentence | 415 | 16.6 |
| Community sentence | 949 | 38 |
| Fine | 437 | 17.5 |
| Conditional discharge | 187 | 7.5 |
| Absolute discharge | 5 | 0.2 |
| Compensation only | 15 | 0.6 |
| Otherwise dealt with | 44 | 1.8 |

**By offence**

| offence | sentenced | custodyPct | acslMonths | avgFine | immediateCustody |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communications Act 2003, s127 | 1,214 | 12.4 | 1.9 | 264 | 150 |
| Malicious Communications Act 1988, s1 | 553 | 17.2 | 5.7 | 273 | 95 |
| Online Safety Act 2023, s181 threatening | 711 | 27.6 | 9 | 290 | 196 |
| Online Safety Act 2023, s179 false | 17 | 11.8 | - | - | 2 |

**Series**

| year | sentenced | custodyPct | acslMonths | avgFine | immediateCustody |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2,791 | 12.4 | 3.1 | 192 | 347 |
| 2018 | 2,726 | 12.7 | 3.2 | 206 | 346 |
| 2019 | 2,540 | 13.2 | 3.6 | 217 | 336 |
| 2020 | 2,404 | 14.4 | 3.7 | 205 | 345 |
| 2021 | 2,895 | 13.4 | 3.2 | 214 | 387 |
| 2022 | 2,779 | 15.2 | 3.7 | 244 | 423 |
| 2023 | 2,728 | 14.6 | 3.7 | 241 | 399 |
| 2024 | 2,508 | 16.1 | 4.3 | 265 | 404 |
| 2025 | 2,495 | 17.8 | 5.9 | 272 | 443 |

## Arrests sit between the report and the charge, and no department publishes them

The Home Office publishes arrests by broad offence group, not by offence, so there is no official count of arrests for communications offences. Each force holds its own. The page can show every stage of the pipeline except that one.

**National**

| stage | n | basis |
|---|---|---|
| Offences recorded by police, 2025/26 | 91,987 | Home Office recorded crime, code 8R |
| Investigations closed with a charge or summons, 2025/26 | 2,750 | Home Office crime outcomes, code 8R |
| Prosecutions, calendar year 2025 | 3,064 | Ministry of Justice, four offence codes, principal offence |
| Convictions, calendar year 2025 | 2,487 | Ministry of Justice, four offence codes, principal offence |

**Ceiling**: vap5y 1,567,201, all5y 3,437,877, share of vap pct 4, note Home Office arrests open data, year ending March 2025 edition, England and Wales. Arrests are published by the offence group the arresting officer recorded, never by offence. Malicious communications sits inside violence against the person, alongside assault, stalking and harassment, so that group is the official ceiling under which any communications arrests figure must fit., reading Police in England and Wales made 1,567,201 arrests for violence against the person in the five years to March 2025, out of 3,437,877 arrests for all offences. The campaign group's 62,199 across the whole United Kingdom is 4.0 per cent of that group, which is plausible in scale, and is the only test the official statistics allow.

**Reported**: figure 62,199, text Big Brother Watch published Britain's Free Speech Problem on 7 September 2026. Its appendix lists arrests for section 127, section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act and the section 179 false communications offence, from Freedom of Information requests to all 45 territorial forces in the United Kingdom for 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025. Forty two forces returned data and the table sums to 62,199; Lancashire, West Mercia and Police Scotland refused on cost grounds, and four forces returned partial years. The group estimates 73,023 if the missing forces arrested at the average rate. It reports 18,520 charged and, for England and Wales, 12,292 convicted. Its national rate is 10.54 arrests per 10,000 residents over five years, from 25.69 in Cumbria to 0.58 in Staffordshire. The arrests are shown here as reported by the group and are not used in any calculation., cross check The conviction figure can be checked. Summing the Ministry of Justice counts for the same three offences over calendar years 2021 to 2025 gives 12,361, within 0.6 per cent of the group's 12,292. Adding the section 181 threatening communications offence, which the group did not count, takes the total to 13,375. The arrests figure cannot be checked against anything official, because nothing official exists., west midlands check The group's appendix gives West Midlands Police 1,613 arrests, marked partial because the force held no data for 2021. The force's own December 2024 disclosure, used below, gives 1,150 for 2022 and 2023 alone, so the two disclosures are consistent with each other.

**West midlands**: note West Midlands Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 1732A/24 (December 2024): arrests by calendar year under section 127 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act, summed. Recorded offences are the financial year beginning in April of that year, Home Office code 8R. Prosecutions and convictions are the Ministry of Justice count for the West Midlands police force area, the four offence codes summed. The force warns its figures were collated for an ad hoc request from several systems and should be read with caution., reading In 2023 the force recorded 8,867 malicious communications offences, made 644 arrests under the two statutes, and the courts convicted 89 people from its area. Roughly one recorded offence in 14 led to an arrest, and one arrest in 7 to a conviction.

## Seven forces have published their own arrest counts. Three match the campaign group; four do not

No department publishes arrests by offence, but forces answer Freedom of Information requests about them, and several have put the answers on their own websites. Those disclosures are the force's own figures and are shown here as such. Set against the campaign group's appendix for the same forces, three agree within a tenth (West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Cumbria) and the rest differ by factors from 0.31 to 2.89, because each force counted something different: arrests, custody records, occurrences, or offence lines that count one arrest twice.

**Force**: West Midlands · **Ref**: FOI 1732A/24 · **Published**: December 2024 · **Url**: https://www.westmidlands.police.uk/foi-ai/west-midlands-police/disclosure-log/2024/december/malicious-communications-foi-ref-1732a24/ · **From**: 2017 · **To**: 2024 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2023 · **Latest full**: 644 · **Since2021**: 1,704 · **Since2021 to**: 2024 (part) · **Campaign group**: 1,613 · **Campaign partial**: true · **Ratio**: 1.06 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: arrests, by the offence recorded at arrest; 2024 is 1 January to 30 September · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: West Yorkshire · **Ref**: FOI 2273245/24 · **Published**: October 2024 · **Url**: https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/freedom-of-information/october-2024-foi-2273245-24-arrests-under-s127-communications-act · **From**: 2017 · **To**: 2024 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2023 · **Latest full**: 963 · **Since2021**: 3,382 · **Since2021 to**: 2024 (part) · **Campaign group**: 3,396 · **Campaign partial**: false · **Ratio**: 1 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: arrests made (not individuals) which included the offence; 2024 is 1 January to 30 September. A separate March 2026 disclosure (FOI 2862671/26) gives 940 unique arrests under both offences in 2023, against 963 when the two offence counts are summed, so an arrest carrying both offences is counted twice in the series below · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: Cleveland · **Ref**: FOI 1024/24 · **Published**: October 2024 · **Url**: https://www.cleveland.police.uk/foi-ai/cleveland-police/disclosure/2024/october/foi-102424-communications-act-arrests/ · **From**: 2019 · **To**: 2024 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2023 · **Latest full**: 91 · **Since2021**: 268 · **Since2021 to**: 2024 (part) · **Campaign group**: 875 · **Campaign partial**: false · **Ratio**: 0.31 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: arrests under the power, traced through CJS offence codes; data held only from 2019; 2024 is 1 January to 28 October · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: Derbyshire · **Ref**: FOI 7705/25 · **Published**: November 2025 · **Url**: https://www.derbyshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/derbyshire/disclosure_2025/foi-7705-v-25-arrests-under-the-section-127-communications-act-2003--section-1-of-the-malicious-communications-act-1988.pdf · **From**: 2017 · **To**: 2025 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2024 · **Latest full**: 107 · **Since2021**: 641 · **Since2021 to**: 2025 (part) · **Campaign group**: 222 · **Campaign partial**: true · **Ratio**: 2.89 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: custody numbers with an arrest offence under Home Office stats code 008/72 (both Acts share the code), excluding voluntary attendance, arrest date 1 January 2017 to 12 November 2025. The disclosure lists counts per offence wording; the yearly figures here sum those lines, so a custody record carrying two communications offences is counted twice. The two Acts cannot be separated because the force reports both under 008/72; all counts are placed under `both` · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: Cumbria · **Ref**: FOI 411/25 · **Published**: 29 April 2025 · **Url**: https://www.cumbria.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/cumbria/foi/2025/may/foi-411_25-malicious-communications-arrests.pdf · **From**: 2015 · **To**: 2025 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2024 · **Latest full**: 217 · **Since2021**: 1,370 · **Since2021 to**: 2025 (part) · **Campaign group**: 1,312 · **Campaign partial**: false · **Ratio**: 1.04 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: arrests from the custody and arrest system, from November 2015; 2025 is to 6 April. The same disclosure gives the number of each year's arrests flagged as domestic abuse · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: Gwent · **Ref**: FOI 2024/277851 · **Published**: June 2024 · **Url**: https://www.gwent.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/gwent/disclosure-2024/06---june/foi_request_2024-2785-communi.pdf · **From**: 2020 · **To**: 2024 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2023 · **Latest full**: 255 · **Since2021**: 746 · **Since2021 to**: 2024 (part) · **Campaign group**: 938 · **Campaign partial**: false · **Ratio**: 0.8 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: custody footfall: a person arrested for several offences at once is counted once, under the offence arrested for; 2024 is the first nine months · **Mca only**: false

**Force**: Wiltshire · **Ref**: FOI 2025-505 · **Published**: 20 May 2025 · **Url**: https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/wiltshire/2025/05-may-2025/foi-2025-505_section-127-of-the-communications-act-2003-and-section-1-of-the-malicious-communications-act-1988.pdf · **From**: 2015 · **To**: 2024 · **To partial**: true · **Latest full year**: 2023 · **Latest full**: 123 · **Since2021**: 373 · **Since2021 to**: 2024 (part) · **Campaign group**: 873 · **Campaign partial**: false · **Ratio**: 0.43 · **Series**: [object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object] · **Basis**: Malicious Communications Act only, distinct count of occurrence numbers by year; the force says it holds no information for section 127. 2024 is a partial year (24 against 123 the year before) and the disclosure does not say to which date · **Mca only**: true


**Cumbria**: note Cumbria, the force the campaign group ranks highest, flags the share of its own arrests that were domestic abuse: 44 per cent in 2021, 41 per cent in 2022, 37 per cent in 2023 and 29 per cent in 2024. Cumbria Constabulary, FOI 411/25, 29 April 2025.

**Sample**: records 34, note Dyfed Powys Police, FOI 1188/2025, January 2026: the custody record summaries of the first 34 eligible arrests of 2024 under either offence, generalised by the force, classified here by keyword. A record can fall in more than one class and nine summaries were blank. One force, one year, one sample: it is the only official glimpse of what these arrests are for, and it shows repeat 999 calls and phone threats at least as often as social media posts.

## Scotland prosecutes abusive messages under a different law, and counts almost none of this

Section 127 applies in Scotland, but Scottish prosecutors mostly charge abusive messages as threatening or abusive behaviour under the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, which covers conduct online and off. Scottish recorded crime publishes only the sexual variant of the Communications Act offence; the last official section 127 court figures are from a 2020 Freedom of Information release; and Police Scotland refused the campaign group's request for arrests on cost grounds.

**Recorded**

| fy | n |
|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 270 |
| 2017-18 | 301 |
| 2018-19 | 199 |
| 2019-20 | 223 |
| 2020-21 | 354 |
| 2021-22 | 315 |
| 2022-23 | 354 |
| 2023-24 | 329 |
| 2024-25 | 388 |
| 2025-26 | 370 |

- **Recorded note**: Recorded Communication Act 2003 (sexual) offences, Scotland, Table A4 of the 2025-26 tables: 370 in 2025-26. The non sexual offence is not separately published.
**S127**

| fy | pros | conv |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 1,045 | 901 |
| 2016-17 | 818 | 721 |
| 2017-18 | 644 | 567 |

- **S127 note**: People proceeded against and convicted under section 127 as the main charge, Scottish Government Freedom of Information release 202000010956, 14 January 2020. No later official figure has been published.
**S38**

| fy | conv | custody |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 10,868 | 1,464 |
| 2019-20 | 10,400 | 1,324 |
| 2020-21 | 6,660 | 908 |
| 2021-22 | 8,814 | 1,032 |
| 2022-23 | 10,156 | 1,038 |
| 2023-24 | 9,475 | 1,126 |

- **S38 note**: People convicted of threatening or abusive behaviour, section 38 of the 2010 Act, with immediate custodial sentences, Scottish Government Freedom of Information release 202600500855, 2 February 2026. The offence is far wider than messaging, so this is a ceiling, not a count.

## The register of things this page cannot show

| question | status | detail |
|---|---|---|
| How many people are arrested for communications offences each year? | not published | Home Office arrest statistics are broken down by offence group (violence against the person, public order and so on), never by offence. The only national figure is a campaign group's Freedom of Information compilation, which covers 42 of 45 forces, omits the threatening communications offence, and cannot be reconciled with anything the state publishes. |
| What happened to the people who were arrested but not charged? | not published | The outcomes data is per investigation, not per arrest. An arrest that ends in release with no further action, a caution or a community resolution is visible only in the force's own systems. |
| How many recorded offences are the new Online Safety Act crimes? | not separable | The police record every communications offence under one Home Office code, 8R. Only the courts data can tell the 2003 Act, the 1988 Act and the 2023 Act apart. |
| How many reports were about social media, as against text messages, letters or calls? | not published | Neither the recorded crime nor the courts data records the medium. The phrase "social media arrests" has no official denominator. The only official glimpse is one force's sample of 34 custody summaries, shown above, in which phone calls outnumber social media posts. |
| What about Scotland and Northern Ireland? | separate systems | Section 127 applies across the UK but recording and prosecution are devolved. Scotland's recorded crime and the Crown Office publish on their own bases and are not included here. |

## What the numbers leave open

- If the Home Office can publish outcomes for every recorded offence, why can it not publish arrests by offence, when every force already holds the figure and answers Freedom of Information requests about it?
- Four in ten malicious communications investigations close because the victim withdraws. Is that victims deciding the process is not worth it, or the police recording a report the victim never wanted pursued?
- The charge rate has moved from 2.5 to 3.0 per cent in seven years while recorded offences fell by more than half. What does a three per cent charge rate on a report based offence mean for the 97 per cent?
- The counting rule change of May 2023 coincided with roughly 100,000 fewer recorded offences the following year. Should a series with a break that size be published without a marked discontinuity in every table?
- Convictions under the four offences have held at roughly 2,400 to 2,900 a year since 2017. If arrests have risen as the campaign figures suggest, is the pipeline filling at the front and emptying in the middle, and where?

## Sources

- Police recorded crime open data tables, police force area, year ending March 2026 (Home Office, published July 2026) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/police-recorded-crime-and-outcomes-open-data-tables) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Crime outcomes in England and Wales, year ending March 2026 (Home Office) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-2025-to-2026) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: December 2025, outcomes by offence data (Ministry of Justice, published April 2026) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-december-2025) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2016, outcomes by offence tool, 2006 to 2016 (Ministry of Justice, published May 2017) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2016) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2024, section 10, stalking and harassment (Office for National Statistics) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2024) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Population estimates for police force areas, mid 2024 (Office for National Statistics) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforpoliceforceareasinenglandandwales) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Online Safety Act 2023, section 189, repeals in connection with the new communications offences (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/189) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Police powers and procedures: stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, year ending 31 March 2025, arrests open data tables (Home Office, published November 2025) (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/stop-and-search-arrests-and-mental-health-detentions-march-2025) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Recorded Crime in Scotland 2025-26, Table A4 (Scottish Government, published June 2026) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2025-26/) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Analysis of prosecutions and convictions under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, FOI release 202000010956 (Scottish Government, January 2020) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000010956/) · Freedom of Information Act 2002 (Scotland) release, published by the Scottish Government
- Criminal offence data, FOI release 202600500855 (Scottish Government, February 2026) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202600500855/) · Freedom of Information Act 2002 (Scotland) release, published by the Scottish Government
- West Yorkshire Police, Freedom of Information disclosures 2273245/24 (October 2024) and 2862671/26 (March 2026), arrests under section 127 and the Malicious Communications Act (https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/freedom-of-information/october-2024-foi-2273245-24-arrests-under-s127-communications-act) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Cleveland Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 1024/24, Communications Act arrests (October 2024) (https://www.cleveland.police.uk/foi-ai/cleveland-police/disclosure/2024/october/foi-102424-communications-act-arrests/) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Derbyshire Constabulary, Freedom of Information disclosure 7705/25, arrests under section 127 and section 1 (November 2025) (https://www.derbyshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/derbyshire/disclosure_2025/foi-7705-v-25-arrests-under-the-section-127-communications-act-2003--section-1-of-the-malicious-communications-act-1988.pdf) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Cumbria Constabulary, Freedom of Information disclosures 411/25, malicious communications arrests (April 2025) and 136/25, section 127 charges (February 2025) (https://www.cumbria.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/cumbria/foi/2025/may/foi-411_25-malicious-communications-arrests.pdf) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Gwent Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 2024/277851, arrests for alleged offences under section 127 and section 1 (June 2024) (https://www.gwent.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/gwent/disclosure-2024/06---june/foi_request_2024-2785-communi.pdf) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Wiltshire Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 2025-505, Malicious Communications Act arrests (May 2025) (https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/wiltshire/2025/05-may-2025/foi-2025-505_section-127-of-the-communications-act-2003-and-section-1-of-the-malicious-communications-act-1988.pdf) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Dyfed Powys Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 1188/2025, sample of malicious communications arrests with custody summaries (January 2026) (https://www.dyfed-powys.police.uk/foi-ai/dyfed-powys-police/disclosure-2026/january/malicious-communications-arrests-11882025/) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- West Midlands Police, Freedom of Information disclosure 1732A/24, malicious communications arrests 2017 to 2024 (December 2024) (https://www.westmidlands.police.uk/foi-ai/west-midlands-police/disclosure-log/2024/december/malicious-communications-foi-ref-1732a24/) · Freedom of Information Act 2000 disclosure, published by the force
- Britain's Free Speech Problem, appendix: FOI data tables for communications offences (Big Brother Watch, 7 September 2026; attribution only, not used in any calculation) (https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Britains-Free-Speech-Problem-070926.pdf) · Campaign group report, quoted under attribution

## Caveats and data notes

- The recorded offence series breaks in May 2023. The Home Office removed the requirement to record a second crime alongside a stalking, harassment or controlling behaviour offence, and ONS attributes the 39 per cent fall in malicious communications in 2023/24 to that change. No figure on this page treats the fall as a fall in reports.
- Recorded offences, outcomes and court proceedings are three different counts of three different things: a report, the closure of an investigation, and a defendant's principal offence. They are shown as stages of one pipeline for orientation only; a case can move between years and between offence codes on the way.
- The Ministry of Justice counts on a principal offence basis, so a defendant convicted of a more serious offence alongside a communications offence is not counted here. It advises against calculating a conviction rate from its prosecution and conviction columns, and this page does not.
- Court figures before 2017 are on the Ministry of Justice's earlier processing basis and are shown in a separate table; the 2016 to 2017 step is within the range the reprocessing explains but is not a measured change.
- The Online Safety Act 2023 repealed parts of both older offences from 31 January 2024. Convictions are therefore summed across four offence codes; any single line, read alone, shows the statute book moving.
- Arrests by offence are not published nationally. The West Midlands figures are the force's own Freedom of Information disclosure, collated for an ad hoc request and carrying the force's caution. The 62,199 figure is a campaign group's compilation of force responses, covering 42 of 45 forces and three of the four offences; its conviction figure reconciles with the Ministry of Justice, its arrests figure cannot be checked, and neither is used in any calculation here.
- The arrests ceiling is the Home Office count of arrests for violence against the person, the offence group that contains malicious communications along with assault, stalking and harassment. It bounds the possible number of communications arrests; it does not estimate it.
- Force arrest disclosures are answers to ad hoc requests, each on the force's own basis and carrying the force's own caution that they should not be compared between forces. They are shown force by force, never summed, and the campaign group's figure sits beside them for comparison only.
- Scottish figures are on Scottish bases and are not added to any England and Wales total. The threatening or abusive behaviour offence covers far more than messages.
- Recorded crime open data is revised between editions. The year ending March 2024 total here is within two per cent of the figure ONS published in its bulletin at the time, and the build asserts that.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com