§ Mr. Roseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he will categorise the type of murders committed during 1965 and 1966 which would, before the abolition of the death penalty, have been capital murders, according to whether they were by shooting, in the course of committing a felony, or under other appropriate headings;
(2) what evidence is in his possession as to the cause, in cases of premeditated murder, of a change of method within the overall decrease in the number of murders committed since the abolition of the death penalty which would explain the rise in formerly capital murders.
§ Mr. CallaghanExcept where there has been a conviction of capital murder, any figures for capital murder are necessarily hypothetical. The figures in the following table include the 8 murders in 1965 that resulted in convictions of capital murder before the coming into effect on 9th November, 1965 of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, but otherwise are based on estimates of whether, under the Homicide Act, 147W 1957, the offence was or would have been one of capital murder; in a number of such cases a jury might have decided otherwise.
Moreover, it would be too early to attempt to draw any conclusions from the figures for the short period of total
ESTIMATED NUMBER OF CAPITAL MURDERS (ENGLAND AND WALES) Murder in the course or furtherance of theft Murder by shooting Murder in the course of resisting arrest Murder of police officer in course of duty Murder of prison officer in course of duty Total 1965 … 5 24 — 2 1 32 1966 … 16 15 — 4 — 35 NOTES: Murders are classified according to the categories used in Section 5 of the Homicide Act, 1957.
Where a murder was a murder by shooting and also the murder of a police or prison officer, it is classified in the latter categories. There was 1 such case in 1965 and 3 in 1966; in all 4 cases the victim was a police officer, and the 1965 murder was committed in the course of committing a felony but not in the course or furtherance of theft.
Where a murder was a murder by shooting and is also estimated to have been a murder in the course or furtherance of theft, it is classified as murder by shooting, unless it was the murder of a police or prison officer. 2 such cases were classified as murder by shooting in 1965 and 2 in 1966.
There were no other cases of murder by shooting in the course of committing a felony.
Of the murders by shooting, 11 in 1965 and 6 in 1966 were followed by the suicide of the suspect.
148W
LATEST CORRECTED FIGURES OF MURDERS KNOWN TO THE POLICE AND MANSLAUGHTERS UNDER s. 2 OR S. 4 OF THE HOMICIDE ACT 1957 (ENGLAND AND WALES) Year Murder Manslaughter under s. 2 of the Homicide Act 1957 Manslaughter under s. 4 of the Homicide Act 1957 1956 … … … 150 — — 1957 … … … 151 21 3 1958 … … … 125 27 2 1959 … … … 141 20 1 1960 … … … 135 31 1 1961 … … … 130 29 — 1962 … … … 142 42 — 1963 … … … 133 56 — 1964 … … … 153 35 — 1965 … … … 151 50 — 1966 … … … 141 62 — abolition, and it would be impracticable to distinguish between premeditated and unpremeditated murder. The Home Office Research Unit will in due course bring up to date the information about murderers and their victims in their report "Murder".
§ Sir C. Osborneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give in column form the number of murders committed each year since 1956 which would include those now designated as manslaughter, but which prior to the 1957 Act were still murder, and the number for 1967 to the latest convenient date.
§ Mr. CallaghanThe information requested cannot be given precisely. The Homicide Act, 1957 provided for a verdict of manslaughter, instead of murder, where the person who killed was suffering from diminished responsibility (Section 2) or was the survivor of a suicide pact (Section 4). The following table gives the figures for offences of manslaughter under these sections, together with the figures for murder, but it cannot be assumed that all the convictions of manslaughter would have been convictions of murder under the law before 1957, since the charge might then have been reduced to manslaughter because of provocation or on some other ground.
149WSeparate figures are not available for offences reduced from murder to manslaughter under other provisions of the 1957 Act; the number of these cases is thought to be very small.
I hope to be able to give the 1967 figures next May.