Rise in homicide cases in the county

Highest number recorded in a decade

THERE were 13 homicides in Leicestershire last year - the highest figure this decade.

The total - which includes murder and manslaughter cases - of 13 for 2016/17 was up from nine the year before, according to Office for National Statistics figures released recently.

This was the highest total this decade going back to 2010/11, one more than the 12 in 2013/14.

It meant that the homicide rate was 12.2 cases per million people in the region.

This works out at a one in 82,000 chance of becoming a homicide victim during the year - about the same as the England and Wales average.

The highest rate was in South Yorkshire, whose figure was skewed enormously by the addition of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster following the conclusion of the inquests in April 2016, which found they were unlawfully killed.

After South Yorkshire the highest rate was in Greater Manchester.

Across England and Wales there were 709 homicides in the year to March 2017, a 25 per cent increase on the year before.

Excluding the Hillsborough victims the homicide total was 613, an eight per cent rise on the year before.

Nationally men were more than twice as likely as women to be homicide victims.

Last year was the second in a row that the number of men killed in homicides has risen, going back to totals last seen in 2010/11.

Babies less than a year old and young men aged 16 to 24 have the highest homicide rate.

The ONS figures show the relationship of the suspect to the victim tended to vary depending on whether the victim was male or female.

Half of female victims aged 16 or over were killed by a current or former partner, compared to just three per cent of male victims.

Adult men were more likely to be killed by a friend or acquaintance (24 per cent of victims compared to 10 per cent for women) and by strangers (22 per cent compared to nine per cent for women).

Forty-two per cent of child victims were killed by a parent or step-parent. Homicide victims/Rate per million 1 South Yorkshire 114/82.3 2 Metropolitan Police 107/12.2 3 Greater Manchester 53/19.1 4 West Midlands 39/13.6 5 West Yorkshire 32/13.9 6 Merseyside 21/14.9 7 Thames Valley 20/8.4 8 Northumbria 17/11.8 9 South Wales 16/12.1 10 Avon and Somerset 15/8.9 10 Devon and Cornwall 15/ 8.7 10 Essex 15/8.3 13 Hampshire 14/7.1 14 Lincolnshire 13/17.5 14 Leicestershire 13/12.2 16 Nottinghamshire 12/10.6 16 Hertfordshire 12/10.2 16 West Mercia 12/9.5 16 Lancashire 12/8.1 16 Sussex 12/7.1 21 Suffolk 10/13.4 22 Warwickshire 9/16.2