Child Sex Offences On The Rise

More than 23,000 child sex offences were recorded by police in England and Wales last year, new figures show.

The data was released after a freedom of information request by the NSPCC.

Figures show that in Hampshire there were more than 1100 crimes - which is twice the number of those recorded for Sussex and three times higher than the figure for Dorset.

But how does the south coast compare to the rest of the country? Here is a force-by-force breakdown of the figures recorded in 2009/10:

:: Avon and Somerset - 581

:: Bedfordshire - 210

:: Cambridgeshire - 148

:: Cheshire - 289

:: City of London - 5

:: Cleveland - 274

:: Cumbria - 188

:: Derbyshire - 180

:: Devon and Cornwall - 729

:: Dorset - 358

:: Durham - 249

:: Dyfed Powys - 255

:: Essex - 543

:: Gloucestershire - 313

:: Greater Manchester - 990

:: Gwent - 273

:: Hampshire - 1,134

:: Hertfordshire - 373

:: Humberside - 670

:: Kent - 740

:: Lancashire - 638

:: Leicestershire - 338

:: Lincolnshire - 303

:: Merseyside - 320

:: Metropolitan Police - 3,672

:: Norfolk - 292

:: North Wales - 304

:: North Yorkshire - 250

:: Northamptonshire - 237

:: Northumbria - 552

:: Nottinghamshire - 574

:: South Wales - 366

:: South Yorkshire - 411

:: Staffordshire - 370

:: Suffolk - 383

:: Surrey - 337

:: Sussex - 572

:: Thames Valley - 1,143

:: Warwickshire - 253

:: West Mercia - 515

:: West Midlands - 1,531

:: West Yorkshire - 1,205

:: Wiltshire - 322