Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Safeguarding on 5 September, Official Report, column 16, in response to the Question of the hon. Member for Jarrow on Deaths following Domestic Abuse, how many (a) domestic homicides, (b) domestic abuse-related (i) unexplained and (ii) suspicious deaths and (c) suspected suicides of individuals with a known history of domestic abuse victimisation have been recorded in each year since March 2020.

Information on domestic homicides is available on the Home Office Homicide Index. In the year ending March 2021, there were 114 domestic homicides recorded by the police in England and Wales[1].

The Home Office have awarded £733,369 in funding over the last three years to the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and College of Policing working with the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme (VKPP), to track and review all deaths within a domestic setting and share learning rapidly with frontline policing. This Domestic Homicide Project has recorded the number of unexplained deaths as a result of or following domestic abuse and suspected suicides of individuals with a known history of domestic abuse victimisation since 23 March 2020.

From 23 March 2020 - 31 March 2021, the project recorded 39 suspected suicides of individuals aged 16 or over, with a known history of domestic abuse victimisation and 14 unexplained deaths, where the victim was aged 16 or over, and where there was a prior record of domestic abuse involving the victim and/or suspects[2].

[1] Homicide in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

[2] Domestic Homicides and Suspected Victim suicides - Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme