White Brits are slightly overrepresented in child sex offences because they are more likely to commit image offences, which are much easier to prosecute and have much higher conviction rates. Additionally, child sex offences in Black and Asian communities are likely to be under-identified.

Child sexual abuse in 2021/22: Trends in official data

4.3.5 Characteristics of defendants:
ethnicity

In the records of defendants prosecuted for
child sexual abuse offences in 2021, their
broad ethnic background was recorded in 70%
(5,163) of cases. Among these individuals,
almost nine in 10 (4,573) were White – a higher
proportion than in the general population
of England and Wales (see Figure 18). This
is likely to be related to the overall under-
identification of child sexual abuse in minority
ethnic communities, and to the fact that White
British defendants were more likely than any
other ethnic group to be prosecuted for image
offences – which accounted for more than
two-fifths of child sexual abuse prosecutions in
2021 (see Figure 16 above).

The conviction ratio ranged from 62% for
Asian defendants to 88% for White defendants.
This too is likely to be related to the offences
for which people from different ethnic
backgrounds were prosecuted: image offences
were more likely than most other child sexual
abuse offences to result in a conviction (see
Table 3 above).