Caveats

  1. 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 courts 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.
  2. Figures relate to defendants for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
  3. Figures include persons where sex "Not Known" and other offenders, i.e. companies, public bodies, etc. Persons can be selected by excluding Sex 'Companies, public bodies, etc'.
  4. Youth Courts are categorised as magistrates' courts in the data. This will impact the figures for indictable only cases at the magistrates' court which will include a high volume of juvenile cases.
  5. Proceedings terminated early: Includes proceedings discontinued under s.23(3) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, charge withdrawn and cases "written off" (e.g. bench warrant unexecuted, adjourned sine die, defendant cannot be traced etc.).
  6. Discharged at committal proceedings: Under Sec. 6 of Magistrates' Court Act 1980 a magistrates' court inquiring into an offence as examining justices shall on consideration of the evidence -
    1. commit the accused for trial if it is of opinion that there is sufficient evidence to put him on trial by jury for any indictable offence;
    2. discharge him if it is not of that opinion and he is in custody for no other cause than the offence under inquiry;

    Comparison with Crown Prosecution Service data suggests that these figures are overstated.

    Committal hearings were abolished in 2013 for triable either way offences.

  7. Committed for trial at Crown Court: Excludes offenders that were committed for sentence from the magistrates' court.
  8. This diagram excludes data for Cardiff magistrates' court for April, July, and August 2008.
  9. Due to improvements in quality assurance procedures, the number of convictions in the Crown Court in 2011 will differ from previously published figures.
  10. Due to limitations in data supply, fine data from magistrates’ courts has been omitted from our data since 2009 of values between £10,000 and £99,999.
  11. ‘Otherwise dealt with’ includes restriction orders, hospital orders, guardianship orders, police cells, and other disposals.
  12. Individuals are counted at each court in the year that the case completes in that court; the number of individuals counted as committed for trial at the magistrates' court in a given year may not match the number counted as for trial at Crown Court. Defendants who appear before both courts may also be convicted at the Crown Court for a different offence to that for which they are counted as having been originally proceeded against at magistrates’ court, where the offence is changed after committal.
  13. Magistrates' court and Crown Court have been abbreviated to MC and CC (respectively).
  14. Some tick boxes are linked due to the relationship between offence groups and offence types (e.g. the two summary offence categories in offence type and offence group represent the same cohort). For more information on these offence categories and commentary on the statistics underlying this tool please visit the the publication landing page.