[holding answer 14 January 2008]: The numbers of fatal, serious and other assaults on police officers have been published each year by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) in their annual report. HMIC have advised that these assaults data will no longer be published in their annual report and that the data for 2004-05 would be the last series of data to be published.
These data are not available by the method of assault. The available data are given in the table as follows.
England and Wales Fatal injury Serious and other injury 2000-014,8 1 12,255 2001-028 1 13,096 2002-034,8 4 14,360 2003-045,7 0 11,654 2004-056 0 13,087 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. Other assaults include those with minor or no injury. Recording practices may vary over time and between forces. 2 Financial year runs 1 April to 31 March inclusive. 3 HMIC did not publish a force breakdown of assaults prior to 1999-2000. HMIC have advised that assaults data will no longer be published in their annual report and that the data for 2004-05 is the last series of these data to be published. 4 Northamptonshire was not able to separate serious and other assaults from 2000-01 to 2002-03. 5 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. 6. 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. 7 Greater Manchester was not able to provide data in 2003-04. 8 Metropolitan police was unable to provide data in 2000-01 and was unable to provide breakdowns of numbers for different assaults from 2001-02 to 2003-04.