The incidence of child homicide: how accurate are the official statistics?

This paper examines the incidence of child homicide in England and Wales, drawing on a review of files from the Director of Public Prosecutions in London from 1983 and 1984. After outlining the official statistics on child homicide, five factors are discussed which suggest that many cases of child-killing may be wrongly categorised. These factors are: cases where maltreatment is not the immediate cause of death, 'cot deaths', the legal difficulties of proof, cases where no body is found or identified and professional reluctance to act. Attempts to estimate the true incidence of child homicide are reviewed and the estimate calculated in the present study outlined.