More than 40% of reported rapes in the EU take place in England and Wales

More rapes and other violent sexual crimes are recorded by police in England and Wales than anywhere else in the European Union, new statistics show.

Some 64,500 attacks were recorded in the two countries during 2015 of which 35,800 were rapes, according to figures released by Eurostat.

The overall figure for England and Wales accounted for 30 per cent of the EU total – about 215,000 – while the number of rape reports was nearly 45 per cent of the union’s 80,000 total.

Across the EU 90 per cent of rape victims and 80 per cent of sexual assault victims were female, and 99 per cent of people jailed for the crimes were male, Eurostat said.

The number of violent sexual crimes recorded in England and Wales vastly exceeded the next-highest.

In Germany police documented 34,300 such crimes, of which 7,000 were rapes.

French forces recorded 32,900 including 13,000 rapes and Swedish police recorded 17,300 overall, including 5,500 rapes.

Sweden’s tally, however, gave it the highest per-capita rate.

Eurostat said: “It should be borne in mind that the figures do not necessarily reflect the actual number of violent sexual crimes. Rather they show to what extent such crimes are reported to and recorded by police.

“Therefore the variation between countries is also influenced by general awareness and attitudes to sexual violence offences.”

The figures came as the UK Office for National Statistics said about 1.9 million adults had experienced domestic abuse in the last year.

About 1.2 million women and 713,000 men aged between 16 and 59 said they were affected.

The ONS said: “The police recorded 1.1 million domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes in the year ending March 2017 and of these, 43 per cent were recorded as domestic abuse-related crimes.”

In its summary the office added: “It is apparent from the different sources that many victims do not see justice, with the majority of cases not coming to the attention of the police, and many of those that do come to their attention do not result in a conviction for the perpetrator of the abuse.”

There had been a slight downward trend in the prevalence of domestic abuse over the last five years, the ONS said.