§ Chris RuaneTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many domestic violence incidents were reported in the last 12 months, broken down by(a) police authority area, (b) local authority area and (c) basic command unit; and how many and what percentage of these incidents resulted in prosecution. [156243]
§ Ms BlearsDomestic violence is not separately identified in the recorded crime statistics collected by the Home Office nor in the statistics of court proceedings, because the circumstances of the offences are not collected. While the number of incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales are measured by the British Crime Survey (BCS), figures are not available by police force area or at more local levels.
In the 2002–03 BCS there were an estimated 501,000 incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales as a whole, 35 per cent. of which were reported to the police. This is from the main face-to-face part of the survey and shows a decrease of 38 per cent. since 1997.