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Assaults on Police

Answer

The available information is given in the following tables. Figures for the number of assaults without injury on a constable are taken from the police recorded crime statistics collected by the Home Office and relate to offences recorded by the police. These figures are on a financial year basis. Assaults without injury are categories which apply specifically to the recorded crime data. If an assault on a police officer results in injury then the offence will be recorded under the appropriate wounding classification (i.e. more or less serious wounding).Prosecutions data come from the Office for Criminal Justice Reform and relate to defendants. These figures are on a calendar year basis. The data refer to prosecutions for assault on a constable which may include cases where an officer receives an injury (unlike the recorded crime data). Because of this and the fact that one dataset looks at offences and the other at defendants, the figures in the two tables are not directly comparable.Prosecutions data are not available for London boroughs but figures for England are given in Table 3.

Table 1: Numbers of assault without injury on a constable offences recorded by basic command units (BCUs) in London region, 2003-04 to 2007-08
BCU (police force)	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
London, City of	104	104	104	104	104
Bishopsgate	19	39	36	28	27
Snowhill	15	17	18	13	16
Metropolitan Police
Barking and Dagenham	94	49	52	96	61
Barnet	61	73	91	105	122
Bexley	43	60	49	45	40
Brent	79	94	115	142	127
Bromley	62	77	53	62	49
Camden	136	157	129	109	149
City of Westminster	230	302	222	275	240
Croydon	118	190	128	155	90
Ealing	57	70	70	75	86
Enfield	57	83	59	91	79
Greenwich	109	115	122	118	106
Hackney	120	106	138	139	143
Hammersmith and Fulham	115	130	136	123	154
Haringey	76	98	69	95	102
Harrow	36	43	42	22	23
Havering	64	80	70	82	63
Heathrow	4	7	4	6	0
Hillingdon	49	99	94	105	64
Hounslow	96	68	97	100	119
Islington	139	186	125	110	115
Kensington and Chelsea	50	59	54	64	50
Kingston upon Thames	27	40	45	53	68
Lambeth	194	293	205	237	188
Lewisham	132	166	154	187	181
Merton	52	51	55	61	44
Newham	96	102	102	90	130
Redbridge	74	78	61	105	63
Richmond upon Thames	27	36	8	14	31
Southwark	138	175	138	158	171
Sutton	21	39	64	58	60
Tower Hamlets	99	91	104	112	92
Waltham Forest	62	71	68	112	70
Wandsworth	79	111	77	106	139
London region	2,830	3,455	3,054	3,453	3,262

Table 2: Numbers of assault without injury offences on a constable offences recorded in England, 2003-04 to 2007-08
Area	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
England	20,440	21,794	20,739	20,113	18,889

Table 3: Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for assaulting a constable in England, 2002 to 2006¹,²
Region	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
England	14,924	16,834	18,360	18,680	17,768
¹ These data are on the principal offence basis. ² Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

483 c1236-8W; 235296

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Assaults on police

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk