You asked

I am writing a piece on domestic violence and I was looking for national statistics of how many victims that you/government/police forces are aware of.

I wish to have the UK adverage for 2013/14/15 if possible, but then also break it down into the top 5 highest number of victims, and the top 5 lowest number of victims.

We said

Thank you for your request.

ONS' crime statistics data primarily come from two sources: The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and Police Recorded Crime (PRC). The CSEW is a face-to-face survey in which people resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of crime in the 12 months prior to the interview. PRC data is collected by the 43 territorial police forces of England and Wales, plus the British Transport Police and does not include crimes that have not been reported to the police or incidents that the police do not record.

Information on domestic abuse is published in our latest "Focus on Violence and Sexual Offences" annual publication. Please click on the link below and open up the Appendix Tables: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015/bulletintablesfocusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffencesyearendingmarch2015

The exact information on the number of victims of domestic violence by UK area that you require is not available however the following tables may be of interest:

Table 4.06 gives the CSEW estimate of victims of domestic abuse for the last ten years. Data is only available for England and Wales as a whole and for adults aged 16 to 59.

Table 4.08 gives the PRC numbers of incidents of domestic abuse for the last eight years for each Police Force Area in England and Wales and for adults aged 16 and over.

Scotland and Northern Ireland collect their own crime data and their websites are linked below: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice http://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/default.asp4.htm

For future reference, you do not need to use a Freedom of Information request to ask for data. It is usually quicker to simply email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk