Why is the term historical used in terms of sex offences and not other offences? This appears to downplay the significance of the charges and to suggest that they’re less important than current offences, so perhaps we don’t need to worry about them so much. The fact that this adjective is only applied to sex offences suggests some reporting bias.

When is an offence historical? Surely all charges for any offence are historical as they always occur after the offence is committed. What length of time is necessary to call it historical? And why isn’t this adjective used for non-sexual offences?