Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 16 July 2014, Official Report, column 678W, on Crown Courts, how many defendants included in the figures for each of the years from 2008 to 2013 were charged with homicide.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of prosecution outcomes with reference to 12 Principal Offence Categories which indicate the most serious offence a defendant is charged with at finalisation, in the CPS Case Management Information System.

The Principal Offence Category comprises a range of individual offences. These cannot be disaggregated to report prosecution outcomes by a specific offence.

Further to the Answer provided on 16 July 2014, published in Hansard, Official Report, column 678W, on Crown Courts, the number of defendants allocated a Principal Offence Category of ‘Homicide’ in each of the last six years, is shown in the attached table.