The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 7 January 2008:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many suicides there were in each 10 year age cohort in each of the last 10 years. I am replying in her absence. (174841)
The table below contains numbers of suicides by age group in England and Wales from 1997 to 2006, the latest year for which data are available.
It is assumed that most deaths from injury/poisoning of undetermined intent at ages 15 and over are cases where the harm was self-inflicted but there was insufficient evidence to prove that the deceased deliberately intended to kill themselves. For this reason, ONS includes in its suicide statistics both those deaths from intentional self-harm, and those from ‘injury or poisoning of undetermined intent.’ The same cannot be assumed for deaths at ages under 15 and therefore deaths from injury or poisoning of undetermined intent are not included when examining suicide (intentional self-harm) in children. As there were no deaths in children aged under 13 with a suicide verdict for the period requested, the table shows the number of suicides in children aged 13 to 14, and the number of suicide and injury/poisoning of undetermined intent deaths in those aged 15 and over.
Suicide2 Suicide2 and injury /poisoning of undetermined intent3 Ages 13-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75-84 85 and over 1997 2 590 1,111 942 857 516 389 286 123 1998 7 651 1,351 1,048 919 554 394 301 114 1999 2 550 1,205 1,115 900 574 429 326 134 2000 1 555 1,124 1,091 911 558 406 287 137 2001 5 506 1,031 1,047 917 594 376 291 129 2002 1 475 1,009 1,104 852 563 364 254 130 2003 2 492 954 1,141 847 598 347 302 115 2004 3 476 896 1,151 889 608 396 315 140 2005 3 445 830 1,131 930 633 338 260 135 2006 3 399 748 1,066 893 692 340 256 110 1 Figures are for deaths registered in each calendar year. 2 The cause of death for suicide was defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes E950-E959 for the years 1997 to 2000, and Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes X60-X84for 2001 onwards. 3 The cause of death for injury/poisoning of undetermined intent was defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes E980-E989 excluding E9 88.8 for the years 1997 to 2000, and Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes Y10-Y34 excluding Y33.9 where the Coroner’s verdict was pending for 2001 onwards.