Murders committed in the UK and their status

FOI-2024-2014

You asked

I’d like to request the following data:

1. How many murders in total were committed in the UK between 1990 and 2000.

2. What percentage of those murders remained unsolved by 31 December, 2000.

3. What was the percentage of unsolved murders during that same time period by victim demographic, specifically (1) men vs. women and (2) people of color vs. white people (3) children under 18 vs. adults (18 and over) and (4) LGBTQ identifying/identified victims, if that data was collected.

We said

Thank you for your request regarding total number of murders committed in the UK and their status.  

We publish a release called 'Homicide in England and Wales’ which analyses data from the Home Office Homicide Index. The Home Office Homicide Index contains record-level information about each homicide recorded by police in England and Wales. 

Table 1 of our Appendix tables: homicide in England and Wales published alongside this release provides an annual breakdown of the number of homicides going back to 1960. These data cover England and Wales, not the whole of the United Kingdom. 

Data for Scotland and Northern Ireland can be found at the linked websites. 

It is important to note that the term homicide encompasses not just murder but also manslaughter, corporate homicide and infanticide. 

As these data are collected by the Home Office it may be helpful to contact them directly if you have any further questions about the data. They can be contacted via email at CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk 

We do not provide statistics on whether a homicide remained unsolved. 

If you have any further questions, you can email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavor to help.