§ Harry CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of drug-related murders in(a) London, (b) England and (c) the UK in each of the last 10 years; and if he will provide the figures for last year in London, broken down by Metropolitan police district. [2711]
§ Mr. DenhamThe available information is for years 1995 to 1997 and financial years 1997–98 to 1999–2000 and covers England and Wales only. This information is shown in the table.
Drug-related murders Metropolitan police1 England England and Wales 1995 2 13 13 1996 3 14 15 1997 4 13 13 1997–98 3 12 12 1998–99 1 8 8 1999–2000 0 1 1 1 Excludes City of London where no drug-related murders were recorded. The information is held on the Home Office's Homicide Index database. This records drug involvement when (i) either the suspect is reported to be under the influence of drugs at the time of the offence or (ii) the homicide is motivated by the need to obtain drugs, or money to buy drugs or is drug related in some other way, such as rivalry between dealers etc. Data have only been collected since 1995 for each police force area in England and Wales, and include information recorded as at 11 September 2000 when recording was closed for publication purposes. The data do not include homicide where there is no suspect and relate only to those homicides where a suspect is convicted of murder. Cases in the latest year may not have been dealt with by the courts and would not be included.
These data may contain some error due to the largely subjective interpretation of 'drugs related' and the amount of information available to the police on the motive for a particular homicide, varying from case to case. A current review of the Homicide Index is aiming to increase the accuracy of data on homicide.