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Written question asked by Lord Dobbs (Conservative) on Tuesday, 30 January 2024, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 13 February 2024. It was answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Conservative) on Tuesday, 13 February 2024 on behalf of the Home Office.

Homicide and Rape: Criminal Proceedings

Question

To ask His Majesty's Government, in each of the past five years, what was the average length of time in England and Wales for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to investigate allegations of (1) murder, and (2) rape, before a decision was made on whether to proceed with prosecution.

Answer

The Home Office collects information on the time taken by the police in England and Wales to reach an investigative outcome for notifiable offences.

Below is a table showing the median number of days taken to assign a charge/summons outcome, from date recorded by the police, for rape and homicide offences, for each year from 2018/19 to year ending September 2023:

Financial Year

2018/19

2019/20

2020/21

2021/22

2022/23

YE Sept 2023

Homicide1,2,3

40

21

25

30

29

23

Rape offences1

381

395

465

467

421

426

Notes:

1. Only includes data for forces who send offence-level data to the Home Office Data Hub

2. The number of median days for Year ending September 2022 and Year ending September 2023 includes 37 territorial police forces. Excludes Devon and Cornwall, Humberside, West Midlands and Greater Manchester Police. The data for these forces was identified to have quality issues or the data was not provided at record level to the Home Office Data Hub in for the reporting period.

3. 2018/19 excludes the 97 homicides which were assigned a charge/summons outcome in relation to the Hillsborough disaster by South Yorkshire Police Force. When these are included, the median number of days taken to assign a charge for homicide was 115 days in 2018/19.

4. Data are shown to the nearest whole day.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL2028
Session
2023-24
Subjects
Criminal proceedings Homicide Rape Standards
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk