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Dog Fighting

Volume 456: debated on Monday 29 January 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) arrests were made and (b) convictions were obtained in (i) Leicester and (ii) Leicestershire for offences relating to organised dog fighting in each of the last five years. (111109)

The information on arrests is not available. Information on arrests held centrally by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform covers persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences), by age group, gender, ethnicity and main offence group only within the 43 police force areas in England and Wales.

Data held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform court proceedings database for the number of defendants convicted of cruelty to animals within the Leicestershire Police force area, 2001-05 can be found in the attached table. Information held centrally does not enable offences relating to dog fighting to be separately identified from other offences involving cruelty to animals.

The number of defendants convicted of cruelty to animals under the Protection of Animals Act 1911 in Leicestershire Police force area and Leicester local justice area, 2001-20051,2,3

Force/Area

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Leicester local justice area

8

16

13

7

10

Other local Justice Areas within

Leicestershire police force area

5

2

10

7

4

Total (Leicestershire police force area)

13

18

23

14

14

1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 It is not possible to separately identify those offences which relate to dog fighting. Source: RDS Office for Criminal Justice Reform