FOI reference: FOI-2026-3431
You asked
I would like to request anonymised statistical information regarding homicide cases in England and Wales for the period 1990 to 2024.
Specifically, I am seeking:
- The total number of homicide victims recorded each year.
- Aggregate demographic details of victims, including age, gender, and region.
- Any anonymised information on whether social media or online platforms were linked to the case, including patterns or prevalence, in a summarized format.
- Any further anonymised breakdowns that may be available, such as method of homicide or other case characteristics, which could be shared without identifying individuals.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We publish Homicide in England and Wales data on the ONS website, which includes findings from the analyses based on the Homicide Index recorded by the Home Office. The Home Office Homicide Index contains record-level information about each homicide recorded by the police in England and Wales.
The data we hold on homicide can be found in our Appendix tables: homicide in England and Wales. You can find the number of homicide offences for each year back to 1960 in Table 1 of the latest dataset for the year ending March 2025. Worksheets 4 and 5 provide further breakdowns by age and sex between 2015 and 2025. Table 24 provides data by police force area back to 2015. Worksheet 8 also provides statistics about the method of killing.
We do not hold information about the role of social media in relation to homicides. As these data are collected by the Home Office it may be helpful to contact them directly if you have any further questions. They can be contacted via email at CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk.