Records held centrally on service personnel who have gone absent without leave (AWOL) relate to the number of incidents reported, not to the number of personnel. Therefore, individuals with multiple periods of absence are recorded more than once. For this reason the percentage of service personnel who went absent without leave in each of the last 10 years cannot be provided. The following table shows absence without leave statistics for each service by calendar year for each of the last 10 years:
Royal Navy1 Army Royal Air Force 1999 35 2,055 15 2000 55 2,710 25 2001 90 2,645 25 2002 110 2,950 25 2003 120 2,820 35 2004 185 3,030 55 2005 195 2,715 35 2006 155 2,330 10 2007 115 2,290 25 2008 125 2,105 5 1 Over this period there have been a number of changes to the criteria for reporting absentees in the RN. Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5. 2. While the figures reflect the number of reports of AWOL, it may come to light later that there are extenuating circumstances and therefore does not reflect the number of personnel who went on to be formally charged with AWOL.
The following table shows the number of service personnel convicted of desertion in each of the last 10 years:
Convictions of desertion 1999 18 2000 8 2001 3 2002 7 2003 3 2004 3 2005 6 2006 8 2007 2 2008 14 1 This figure does not include the last quarter of 2008 for the RN.