Murders in London – The Big Grey Animal In The Room

Last updated on July 20th, 2023 at 05:45 pm

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Much has been written about the current levels of Murders in London. There has been quite a lot of anecdotal evidence and innuendo. In an attempt to put some context on the issue and hopefully move it along in a positive way I asked the Met to extract 12 months worth of data from their CRIS system in relation to offences of Murder.

The question I asked was this

Could you please supply me with details of ALL Attempted Murders and Murders within the MPD for the 2019/20 Financial Year (or the most recent 12 months if that is easier)
For each offence please include Borough, Gender, Age and Ethnic Appearance of both Victim and Suspect.
If it is possible could this info please be provided as an EXCEL workbook or equivalent?

You would think that wouldn’t be too difficult. If only. The Met made it so difficult that before the data could be released to me it had to go through a High Level Decision Maker. Really?

The decision that he or she came to was that they would REFUSE to release some of the data. Which some do you think?

They have supplied me a series of one line entries relating to Victims, including the data I requested, and they have supplied me with a separate series of one line entries relating to Suspects, which also included the data I requested. What they have REFUSED to do is link the two, so it is impossible to state with any authority that any one ethnic group is attacking another. This is not a failing, it is a positive REFUSAL.

In my opinion that has to be a political decision. Why on earth would it not be in the public interest to know this information?

Well, that’s enough of the rant. What sense can we make of the data they have supplied?

Dealing first with offences of Attempted Murder. I’m not really that bothered but for these offences the Met has decided to withhold the Borough from the data. However they have released some data relating to 174 offences of Attempted Murder. They break down like this.

Murders in London
Fig 1
Murders in London
Fig 2

We can see from Fig 1 that as far as Attempted Murder is concerned, the two most prevalent ethnic groups for the victims are Afro Caribbean and White European. Due to missing data re ethnicity of the suspects, where an ethnicity has been recorded, there are approx twice as many Afro Caribbean suspects as victims. However, in cases where ethnicity has been recorded, approximately twice as many were Afro-Caribbean than White European, and they were the two largest groups by far.

In total there were 174 victims and 437 suspects

Turning our attention to offences of substantive Murder. Where have they been committed?

Murders in London
Fig 3

Immediately it jumps out of the page that 2 Boroughs have suffered from Murders more than any other. Newham and Redbridge.

When I looked at the long-term incidence of Murder in London last year, Newham was up there then, Redbridge was much lower down. So, historically, not much has changed in Newham, but is Redbridge ‘up and coming’?

Murders in London
Fig 4
Murders in London
Fig 5

In total there were 593 Suspects listed. A bit of rough, crude number crunching would suggest that for each of the 174 Attempted Murder Victims there were 2.5 Suspects, and for each of the 143 Substantive Murder Victims there were 4.1 Suspects. I know these are averages, but it does indicate that the murders in London are not exactly one on one offences. Gang Related? Possibly A good time to ‘weed’ the London Gangs Matrix then.

What does this all tell us?  It tells us that not much has changed since my earlier post.  The current info shows that the majority of offences are occurring in two Boroughs, Newham and Redbridge, and it it tells us that, where ethnicity was recorded, Afro-Caribbeans form the largest group in both Suspects and Victims.

I did hope to be able to demonstrate how many offences were committed by Black on Black, White on White etc, and finally address the elephant in the room, but the Metropolitan Police has prevented me from doing that by refusing to release that data. A decision that I intend to appeal, so watch this space for an update, It may take some time as I fully intend to follow this one up to the Information Commissioner if my initial appeal is unsuccessful. My personal opinion that it is too important a subject to let a few snowflake athletes and politicians influence (possibly) the Met into refusing to release perfectly valid, sterile, anonymous date.

I will not be holding my breath however, but I do love a fight with ‘the system’.

Quite honestly the situation is dire. The Mayor of London quite openly disapproves of the Gangs Matrix and the Senior Management of the Metropolitan Police is allowing itself to be pushed in a certain direction by athletes and politicians who clearly have a problem with Stop and Search. The thing with Stop/Search is that it is impossible to quantify how much crime it prevents.

What one can quantify however is how many knives and firearms Stop/Search removes from the streets. As their main purpose is to kill or injure, the seizure of each and every weapon quite possibly equates to a life saved. However, there are those amongst who feel that saving hurt feelings or misplaced opinions of bias are more important than saving lives.

Me? I’m in favour of saving lives. I’m quite glad that I no longer have to do it, but if I was still serving I would much rather explain to somebody why I was Stop/Searching them, their friend or family member than being on my knees, covered in some poor child’s blood trying to stem the flow. Dramatic? NO. It’s the modern reality of Policing in London. More and more Polie Officers are applying emergency First Aid until the Ambulance/Helicopter/Paramedics rock up. And they do so with commitment, regardless of the ethnicity of the poor soul lying outsetched on the ground in front of them.

The political point-scoring has to stop, and so does the killing. All agencies, including the Public need to work together to stop the killings. Parents need to know where their kids are and what they’re doing. Dare I say “take some responsibility” for their kids and the lives of others?

I look forward to the results of my appeal(s)

Update

Today I have received the result of my appeal. Best part of 5 pages apologising for the appalling delay in supplying the meagre info that they did supply, but reiterating their refusal to supply the detailed data in case it enabled me to identify living murder suspects. Yeah, right, white male aged 18-22 would definitely allow me to identify the suspect.

“You have asked for information which relates to investigations the MPS has had a duty to conduct. “

“Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, Public Authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). “

“The exemption has been applied as disclosure in full could identify living individuals linked to criminal investigations. This constitutes personal data which would, if released, would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA.”

Inevitably the saga continues with a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. It seems to me that the Met just don’t want the elephant to escape. We can think we know who is killing who in London, but they’re not going to (willingly) release the data to prove it.

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2 thoughts on “Murders in London – The Big Grey Animal In The Room”

  1. The CPS might argue that you don’t KNOW those knives are for hurting and killing. I had a stopsearch arrest for going equipped refused charge by them because “we do not know whether the suspect was simply intending to keep eg a fish and chip supper warm on his way home later that day”. After I’d nicked him at 3pm on his way into Debenhams with a tinfoil lined bag, he went no comment in interview, was bailed, and was never seen again. The denial is rife in the judicial hierarchies.

    1. Agreed, one cannot KNOW what the intention is, but that isn’t a reason not to Stop/Search. Find out it’s for a chip supper, dust them down and aplogise and off they go, but they might just think twice about using it.

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