John Pugh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Pugh on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many murders have been committed by people in receipt of psychiatric treatment or deemed by a court at the time of trial to require psychiatric treatment for a clinical illness in England and Wales in each of the last five years.

Brandon Lewis

The available information for England and Wales from the Home Office Homicide Index is shown in the attached table and shows the numbers of homicide offences where the court decides that, acting on medical evidence, the suspect should be the subject of a hospital order.

The data does not specifically identify those suspects requiring psychiatric treatment for a clinical illness.

Data is based on the number of offenders whose court proceedings have been completed. Due to the time it can take for cases to pass through the criminal justice system, there is likely to be an increase in the number of people convicted of homicide and given a hospital order for recent years when updated figures are published in 2017.

In addition, the National Confidential Inquiry, based at Manchester University, publishes an annual report on suicide and homicide of people with mental illness, using information from the Homicide Index and Hospital Trust records. The most recent report is available at:

http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuicideprevention/nci/reports/