Police: Crimes of Violence

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many assaults against (a) police community support officers and (b) regular police officers on frontline duty there were in (i) Essex and (ii) England and Wales in each of the last five years; and what percentage of all officers in each category these figures represented. (154911)

The numbers of serious and other assaults on police officers and operational police staff are published each year in the HMIC Annual Report and have been given in the table.

These data are not available by individual rank and therefore have been provided for police officers and operational staff as combined figure.

*Serious and other assaults*¹ *on police officers and operational police staff from 2001-02 to 2004-05*^{2, 3}
	Force
	Essex	England and Wales⁴
2001-02
Serious	0	400
Other	225	12,696

2002-03
Serious	0	263
Other	260	14,097

2003-04
Serious	1	253
Other	374	11,401

2004-05
Serious	2	393
Other	262	12,825
¹ Data collated on behalf of and published by HMIC. Serious assaults are those for which the charge would be under Sections 18 and 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Recording practices may vary between forces. ²Financial year runs 1 April to 31 March inclusive. ³Data for 2005-06 have been collated but not yet validated. Figures will be available in the HMIC Annual Report 2005-06. ⁴Greater Manchester was unable to provide data for 2003-04. Lancashire and West Midlands were not able to provide breakdowns of numbers for different assaults in 2003-04, however the number of overall assaults was 462 and 1,112 respectively. Lancashire and West Midlands were not able to provide breakdowns of numbers for different assaults in 2004-05, however the number of overall assaults was 521 and 910 respectively.

*Percentage of police and operational staff being assaulted*¹ *from 2001-02 to 2004-05*^{2, 3}
Percentage
	Force
	Essex	England and Wales⁴
2001-02	n/a⁵	n/a⁵
2002-03	4.9	6.6
2003-04	6.6	5.0
2004-05	6.5	5.4
¹Data collated on behalf of and published by HMIC. Serious assaults are those for which the charge would be under Sections 18 and 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Recording practices may vary between forces. ²Financial year runs 1 April to 31 March inclusive. ³Data for 2005-06 have been collated but not yet validated. Figures will be available in the HMIC Annual Report 2005-06. ⁴Greater Manchester was unable to provide data for 2003-04. Lancashire and West Midlands were not able to provide breakdowns of numbers for different assaults in 2003-04 or 2004-05. ⁵Staff strength by headcount is not available for 2001-02.

Volume 463: debated on Monday 10 September 2007