Murder and manslaughter is rising again

But while the figures show homicide has increased overall and among men, it has fallen among women

HOMICIDES are on the rise, with men now three times more likely to be killed than women. According to the Homicide Index from the Home Office, there were 695 victims in England and Wales in the year ending March 2020.

That was 47 more deaths than the previous year, a rise of seven percent.

As well as murders, the number includes cases of manslaughter.

The increase was partly because the most recent figures included 39 Vietnamese migrants, who were found dead in a lorry container in Grays, Essex.

Overall, there was a 20 per cent increase in the number of male victims, with the number rising from 422 deaths in 2018/19 to 506 last year.

Meanwhile the number of female victims fell for the first time since 2015/16, dropping by 16 per cent from 225 deaths to 188.

That means almost three quarters of homicide victims last year were male (73 per cent).

Over the three year period to the end of March 2020 there were 11.7 homicides for every million of the population - an increase from 11.0 in the three year period ending March 2019.

For every million of the male population, there were 17.0 homicides in 2019/20, compared to 6.0 deaths per million of the female population.

However, there is a stark difference between male and female victims in terms of their relationship with the suspected killer.

Women were far more likely than men to be killed by a partner, ex-partner or family member.

In the last year, in more than a third of cases where the victim was a woman, the main suspect was their partner or ex-partner (35 per cent, or 61 victims).

When those killed by a family member are included, almost half of adult female victims were killed in a domestic homicide (46 per cent or 81 victims).

Meanwhile for men, the killer was more commonly a friend, acquaintance or stranger. Only 33 men were victims of domestic homicide last year (seven per cent of the total number).

The figures also show that Black people were five times more likely to be victims of homicide than White people.

The homicide rate was 49.5 per million of the Black population of England and Wales, and 9.4 per million of the White population.

While almost two thirds of homicide victims last year were White (443 deaths, or 64 per cent); the 105 Black victims was the highest number seen since 2001/02.

Meanwhile, 56 victims (eight per cent of the total number of homicides) were Asian and 64 (nine per cent) were in the “other” ethnic group, which includes the 39 victims of the Essex lorry deaths.

In the remaining cases, the ethnicity of the victim was either not known or not recorded.