Over a hundredpensioners were arrested in G District

The offences reported ranged from serious sexual offences, threats to kill, criminal damage and drink driving to bigamy, voyeurism and the abandonment of animals.

The vast majority of suspects were men although some elderly women were also arrested across G District between May 2011 and May 2014.

The oldest suspect was an 88-year-old man who was arrested for driving with excess alcohol in his breath in 2012.

Another man in his eighties was arrested during the same year on suspicion of having carried out an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was 82.

In 2011 there were over twenty such arrests on the local police records. This was also the case in 2012. There were over 40 arrests of pensioners during 2013.

And in this year to May there were ten arrests.

Some of the suspects were arrested on suspicion of having been perpetrators of the most serious of offences.

For instance, a 66-year-old man was arrested in 2011 on suspicion of having committed “sexual assault by penetration (after 2009).” A 79-year-old man and a 75-year-old man were separately arrested for the same offences in 2012.

More unusually a 70-year-old man was arrested for abandoning an animal in the second half of 2011. And a 66-year-old man was arrest on suspicion of being a bigamist in 2012. In 2013 a 77-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of voyeurism.

There were four instances of elderly women being arrested over the period. The first, in 2011, involved a 66-year-old woman who had caused criminal damage.

This year a 69-year-old woman was arrested for driving with excess alcohol in her blood and failing to provide a specimen when in charge with excess alcohol.

A sixty-five-year-old woman was also arrested this year on suspicion of having improperly used electronic communications to cause anxiety.

There were also a number of instances of threats to kill, the cultivation of drugs, GBH and ABH, although the vast majority of offences related to drink-driving.

Figures for the whole of Northern Ireland show there were a total of 716 individuals arrested, however, there were a total of 951 arrests, indicating some suspects generated more than one arrest.

The PSNI explained: “These figures are based on persons who were arrested and processed through custody and were over 65 at time of arrest. The age at time of arrest for each individual may change for different arrest offence records as individuals may have been arrested on more than one occasion during the three years.

“Each arrest offence has been listed, along with the year the offence occurred – an individual may have been arrested for multiple counts of a specific offence but if each occurred on a different date then each will be listed separately.”