Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the annual average numbers of persons murdered in the period 1952 to 1955 and in the period 1957 to 1960, respectively.
§ Mr. R. A. Butler:The annual average of the numbers of murders known to the police was 143 in the period 1952 to 1955, and 151 in the period 1957 to 1960. The averages are those of numbers of offences originally recorded during the year by the police as murder, less those which, up to the end of the year, the police had found not to be murder or the courts had disposed of as offences other than murder. The figures for the two periods are not directly comparable because of the alterations in the definition of murder made by the Homicide Act, 1957.
91W