Over 2,000 honour crimes recorded in England, Wales

LONDON: More than 2,000 honour crimes have been recorded by police in England and Wales in the last year, figures suggest.

But the true number of crimes being committed is likely to be much higher, due to a reluctance by victims to come forward as well as problems with the way police are recording offences, a Home Office bulletin said. Police forces have been required to report the number of “honour-based abuse-related” (HBA) offences they record to the Home Office since April last year.

A short summary of the figures so far, published for the first time on Wednesday, said that in 2019-2020 forces recorded 2,024 HBA crimes. Of these, 74 were female genital mutilation (FGM) crimes and 140 were forced marriage, while 1,810 other offences were tagged as involving HBA.

The number of crimes recorded by each police force was not provided and no further details were given in the publication.

Greater Manchester Police could not provide any figures because of ongoing problems with new computer technology which have led to issues recording crimes.

The statistics were published in a bid to “shine a light on the level of these offences dealt with by the police and to encourage other victims to come forward and report these offences to the police,” the Home Office report said.

HBA-related crimes referred to in the report are defined as “an incident or crime involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation, coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse) which has or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family and/or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community’s code of behaviour”.

But the experimental statistics are likely to be incomplete, with the report recognising that many victims may be reluctant to report such crimes to the police. It added: “These data, therefore, are likely to only represent a small proportion of the actual HBA offences committed in 2019-2020.”