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25 July 2006 : Column 1322W—continued

Offence description	Principal statute	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Breeding or breeding from a fighting dog	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(2)(a)	—	—	—	—	—	1	—
Selling, exchanging, offering, advertising or exposing for sale a fighting dog	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(2)(b)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Giving or offering to give a fighting dog	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(2)(c)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Allowing a fighting dog to be in a public place without a muzzle or a lead	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(2)(d)	—	4	1	—	—	—	—
Abandoning or allowing to stray a fighting dog	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(2)(e)	—	—	—	—	1	—	—
Possession, without exemption, of a Pit Bull Terrier, Japanese Tosa or other designated fighting dog	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 1(3)	—	—	—	—	1	—	—
Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in a public place injuring any person	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 3(1)	15	12	17	19	22	27	17
Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in a public place, no injury being caused	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 3(1)	7	8	8	8	7	8	7
Owner or person in charge allowing dog to enter a non-public place and injure any person	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 3(3)	—	1	—	2	—	—	1
Owner or person in charge allowing dog to enter a non-public place causing reasonable apprehension of injury to a person	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 3(3)	1	—	—	1	—	—	—
Failing to give up a dog for destruction or having custody of a dog while disqualified	Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Sec 4(8)	6	27	16	34	25	19	17
Total all offences		29	52	42	64	56	55	42
(1 )These data are provided on the principal offence basis. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Crime Statistics

Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of reported crimes in each London borough resulted in (a) an arrest and (b) a conviction in 2005; and if he will make a statement. [85936]

Mr. McNulty: Data collected centrally do not track individual offences to conclusion. Recorded offences are counted on the basis of crimes committed and are available by London borough. Arrests are counted on the basis of offenders by police force area only and convictions are counted on the basis of offenders by court.

Information on arrests and convictions is not available for 2005. The latest published data can be found at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/hosbpubs1.html

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Jeff Ennis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) robberies and (b) burglaries were reported in (i) Barnsley and (ii) Doncaster in each of the last five years; and how many resulted in conviction. [87635]

Mr. McNulty: The available information is given in the tables as follows. Recorded crime deals with offences while convictions data is based on offenders. For this reason the two data sets are not directly comparable.

Table 1: Recorded offences of robbery and burglary in Barnsley and Doncaster—2001-2002
	Barnsley		Doncaster
	Robbery	Burglary	Robbery	Burglary
2001-02	135	5,363	300	8,952

Table 2: Recorded offences of burglary and robbery in Barnsley and Doncaster—2002-03 to 2005-06
	Barnsley		Doncaster
	Robbery	Burglary	Robbery	Burglary
2002-03	162	5,380	375	9,962
2003-04	125	4,408	227	7,173
2004-05	76	2,810	200	5,977
2005-06	82	3,056	227	6,210
(1) The data in this table takes account of the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in April 2002. These figures are not directly comparable with those for 2001-02

Table 3: Number of defendants convicted at all courts of Burglary and Robbery as a result of proceedings brought in Barnsley and Doncaster Local Criminal Justice areas, by committing court, 2000-04( 1,2)
Offence / Committing court	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Burglary
Barnsley District	149	128	126	136	157
Doncaster	283	251	270	255	199
Total	432	379	396	391	356
Robbery
Barnsley District	19	20	22	33	24
Doncaster	44	67	55	40	55
Total	63	87	77	73	79
(1) These data are provided on the principal offence basis (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces and courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Crown Prosecution Service

Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to require the Crown Prosecution Service to contact the families of murder and manslaughter victims prior to a trial. [46419]

The Solicitor-General: I have been asked to reply.

In October 2005, the Attorney-General issued the Prosecutors’ Pledge. The Pledge commits prosecutors to 10 specific areas of service that will be provided to victims, including the families of murder and manslaughter victims and witnesses. These 10 pledges include: commitments to taking into account the
25 July 2006 : Column 1324W
impact on the family when making a charging decision; informing the family when a charge is withdrawn, discontinued or substantially altered and, where practical, seeking the views of the family when considering the acceptability of a defendant’s pleas; encouraging communication between the family and the prosecutor at court; objecting to inappropriate cross-examination that may attack the character of a victim; on conviction challenging defence mitigation which is derogatory to the victim’s character, and explaining to the families the effect of court judgments and the progress of any appeals.

These services will be provided by prosecutors working with the police and assisted by joint police/Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Witness Care Units (WCUs). Day to day contact with the families will ordinarily be undertaken by the police family liaison officer. The role of the WCU in murder and manslaughter cases is to maintain communication between the prosecutor and the family liaison officer so as to ensure that the family is properly informed about the progress of the case and receives appropriate support throughout the criminal justice process.

Curfews

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners at (a) Chelmsford, (b) Coldingly, (c) Elmsley and (d) Rochester prison convicted of offences under section 18 of the Offences against the Persons Act 1861 were given home detention curfews in each of the last five years; how many prisoners at each institution were registered for home detention curfews in each year, broken down by grounds for rejection; and how many appeals by prisoners at each institution against rejection of applications for home detention curfews were granted in each year. [50369]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The following table shows (i) the number of prisoners released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) and (ii) the number of prisoners who were sentenced to three months to less than four years and who had an HDC eligibility date in the periods specified.

The information on the number of prisoners who were sentenced to three months to less than four years and who had an HDC eligibility date in the periods specified, will include prisoners who are not eligible for release under the scheme, either because they are excluded by statute or are presumed unsuitable as a matter of policy. Other prisoners will opt-out of being assessed for release on HDC, or will turned down following risk assessment. As prisoners may move between prisons these figures should be used as broad estimates.

The offences recorded on the central prison IT system do not relate to offences under specific pieces of legislation. The information in the table includes those prisoners recorded with offences of wounding (inflicting GBH) and assault with intent to cause GBH.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system, and so can be used for purposes of looking at the relative magnitude of components.

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