Once a “fact” is in the electronics cuttings library it makes regular reappearances. I complained here about Refuge’s use of homicide statistics and its claim that murders of women by husbands and partners were increasing.
 
They rose in a single year, 2007-08 to 2008-09, but the long-term trend is flat.  The most recent data show that they fell in 2009-10.
 
But the Evening Standard, no doubt relying on the original Guardian cutting, has repeated the claim (27 January, p30). “The number of women killed by a partner has risen by more than 40 per cent, from 72 in 2008 to 102 last year” its report says. No mention of the latest statistics, out last week and reported here, that show they have since fallen.
 
It’s easier to look up cuttings and rely on charities’ press releases than search the statistics.  The main burden of the Standard story is the claim, from Trust for London and the Henry Smith Charity, that domestic violence costs London £918 million a year.
 
This comes from a press release, available on Trust for London’s website, which says the figures result from a new analysis. In practice this means a reworking of  a 2009 report by Professor Sylvia Walby on the same subject, broken down by area, and excluding the near £10 billion a year that Professor Walby attributed to human and emotional costs.
 
Comparing like with like, Professor Walby found the costs in 2008 (legal services, healthcare, criminal justice system, housing and loss of economic output) to be £5.8 billion, while the new figure is £5.5 billion. How so? Domestic violence is declining, though you wouldn’t know this from the way the figures are presented or reported.
 
The press release implies that human and emotional costs are included, but they’re not. That’s commendable, since the calculation of these costs is the most questionable element in Professor Walby’s report.