Video Games: Young People
Home Department
Written answers and statements, 29 September 2008
David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offences of retailers selling video games or DVDs to underage customers were recorded in each police force area in England and Wales in each year since 1997; how many (a) cautions and (b) fines were issued to such retailers in each year; and what the average fine imposed was in each year.
Vernon Coaker (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Gedling, Labour)
holding answer
Information on the number of recorded offences of retailers selling video games or DVDs to underage customers is not collected centrally. This is a summary offence and is not included in the police recorded crime statistics.
Statistics on the number of police cautions issued, the number of fines imposed and the average fine have been provided by the Ministry of Justice and are given in the following table for 1997-2006.
| Offenders( 1) cautioned( 2) and fined for supplying video recording of classified work in breach of classification( 3) , England and Wales | |||
| Number of police cautions issued | Number of fines imposed | Average fine amount (£) | |
| 1997 | 1 | 15 | 519 |
| 1998 | — | 18 | 440 |
| 1999 | — | 33 | 798 |
| 2000 | — | 16 | 1,028 |
| 2001 | — | 9 | 1,378 |
| 2002 | — | 12 | 1,079 |
| 2003 | 1 | 14 | 921 |
| 2004 | — | 6 | 775 |
| 2005 | — | 8 | 489 |
| 2006 | — | 8 | 1,244 |
| (1) Companies, public bodies, etc. (2) These data are on a principal offence basis. (3) Video Recording Act 1984 S.11 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 S.88 (4). Note: These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. | |||