An article in The Times newspaper last week (Three deaths in a weekend sends murder rate soaring) highlighted the increase in London homicides so far this year.
In January and February 2015 we counted 26 homicides compared to 12 across January and February 2015.
So does this suggest a new trend or is it just an unusual spike?
A look at the Metropolitan Police’s rolling 12 month homicide figures suggests the last two years (up to January 2015) both saw 104 homicides, suggesting this is just a spike after a very quiet summer and autumn of 2014.
It should also be noted that we counted 12 homicides in March 2014 (equal to both January and February 2014 combined). As of today (14 March 2015) we only know of two homicides this month.
We will keep an eye on the statistics over the coming months and return to this subject in a later blog.
UPDATE on 4 April: We counted six homicides in March 2015, bringing the total to 32 this year, compared to 24 over the first three months of 2014.