HC Deb 17 July 1985 vol 83 cc156-7W
Mr. Hill

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the number of reported robberies with violence of persons over 60 years for each of the last 10 years and the number of convictions for such robberies for each of the last 10 years.

Mr. Mellor

Information collected centrally on offences of robbery does not include the age of the victim(s) either for those offences recorded by the police or for those offences which were the subject of court proceedings; nor does it distinguish between robberies involving the use of violence and those involving only the threat of violence. The only information collected centrally on the age of victims of robbery relates to those offences in which a firearm was reported to have been used and is given in the following table; corresponding information for earlier years is not available. Information on all offences of robbery recorded by the police and on persons found guilty or cautioned for offences of robbery is published annually in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales" in the volume for 1983, Cmnd. 9349, chapter 2 for offences recorded, chapter 3 for those offences in which firearms were reported to have been used and chapter 5 for persons found guilty or cautioned.

Offences of robberies recorded by the police in which firearms were reported to have been used and the principal victim was aged over 60 years
Number
1979 63
1980 64
1981 91
1982 98
1983 85