Female homicide victim data breakdowns, April 2021 to March 2024

Release date:
9 April 2026

FOI reference: FOI-2026-3450

You asked

I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for data held within the Home Office Homicide Index.

Specifically, I request the following:

  1. For the three-year period ending March 2024 (i.e. April 2021 to March 2024), the number of female homicide victims in England and Wales, broken down by the officer-identified ethnicity of the principal suspect where that suspect is male. I request this using the same ethnicity categories used in your published Appendix Tables (White, Black, Asian, Mixed/Multiple, Other).

  2. The same breakdown further disaggregated by relationship type between victim and suspect, using the categories: partner or ex-partner, family member, friend or acquaintance, stranger, and no suspect charged.

  3. The same breakdown as in (1) above, restricted to domestic homicides only (as defined in the Homicide Index).

  4. If available, a further disaggregation of the Asian ethnicity category into sub-categories (e.g. Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Other Asian), consistent with the detailed ethnicity classifications recorded in the Homicide Index.

I note that the Homicide Index already records ethnicity (Appendix Table 33), sex of victim by sex of suspect (Appendix Table 34), and relationship type (Appendix Table 15) as separate variables. This request is for the cross-tabulation of these existing variables, which I believe should be straightforward to produce from the record-level data.

I understand the three-year pooling approach is used in your published analyses to address small sample sizes, and I am content with that approach being applied here.

We said

Thank you for your request. 

The Homicide in England and Wales statistics we publish are based on data supplied to us by the Home Office. We do not hold the underlying raw data from the Homicide Index and therefore are unable to produce additional crosstabulations of the characteristics you requested. 

The Home Office may be able to assist you further. You can contact them directly at: CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk  

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