‘We can’t tackle violent crime alone’

15 February 2023

West Mercia Police Federation interim chair Pete Nightingale says officers are doing everything they can to reduce violent deaths in the county.

But he said tackling violent crime was not only a police issue and needed a multi-agency approach.

Pete was speaking after new data from the Office for National Statistics showed 20 homicides were committed in the West Mercia Force area between April 2021 and March 2022. This was compared to 21 in the previous 12 months.

The homicide rate in West Mercia over the three-year period to the year ending March 2022 was 12.6 per million population. The figure was higher than the average for England and Wales, which was 10.8 per million population.

Pete said: “Violent crime is a scourge on society and every life lost to violence is a tragedy that affects the families, friends and communities.

“Our members are doing everything they can to tackle it, to bring the number of incidents down and to save lives – but we can’t do it alone.

“We need support of decision makers to recruit more officers so that we can have more bobbies on the beat building to build relationships and trust in our communities.

“We need to support for our members to use the powers they have to take weapons off the streets.

“We need other services – such as the health service, education and social services – to come together so that prevention becomes the key to our response.

“And we need the public to be our eyes and ears as well, because quite often a homicide can be prevented.”

Nationally, homicide returned to pre-pandemic levels in the year to March 2022, according to the ONS figures.

There were 696 victims in the last year, 130 more – or a 23 per cent increase – than the year ending March 2021 when Government restrictions meant there was less social contact.

The ONS data also showed: 

• The homicide rate over the three-year period to the year ending March 2022 was 39.7 per million population for the black ethnic group, approximately four times higher than for the white ethnic group (8.9 per million population).
• 282 homicides, approximately 4 in 10, were committed using a knife or sharp instrument, a 19 per cent increase compared with the previous year, and the highest annual total since the Home Office’s homicide index began in 1946
• There were 69 homicide victims aged 13 to 19 years. Of these, 51 were killed by a knife or sharp instrument
• There were 134 domestic homicides in the year ending March 2022, 18 more than the previous year, and a similar number to the average over the last decade of 129
• Males accounted for 72 per cent of homicide victims in the latest year, but 93 per cent of convicted suspects.