Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many police officers have been charged with (a) grievous bodily harm or (b) actual bodily harm by the Crown Prosecution Service and then acquitted after a trial in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

The offences of grievous and actual bodily harm are created by the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of defendants charged with, or prosecuted for these offences. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.

While the CPS does not hold a central record of defendants prosecuted by specific offences, records are held reporting the number of defendants, identified as being persons serving with the police, who are assigned the Principal Offence Category ‘Offences against the Person’ at finalisation. Persons serving with the police are defined as, and include, police staff, community support officers and contracted escort and detention officers in addition to serving police officers. These figures are identified by way of a monitoring flag, administered by a member of staff highlighting it as a “Police complaint” case.

The table below shows the number of prosecuted defendants, flagged as being persons serving with the police and whose Principal Offence Category was identified as ‘Offences against the Person’, in each of the last five years.