Home Office Counting Rules

The latest version of the Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) has been published by the Research Development and Statistics Directorate (RDS) of the Home Office.

There have been a number of changes made to the HOCR, which came into force on April 1, including:

• A new annex D entitled Evidence Based Crime Recording. This annex aims to provide additional clarification in relation to offences against the State. A list of State-based offences will be produced and presented at the next HOCR Working Group and, once approved, incorporated into the on-line version of the HOCR. The ‘Principal Crime Look-up Table’ (previously Annex D) becomes Annex E.
• Criteria for recording crimes relating to covert operations has been added to Section A of the General Rules. This allows for crimes to be recorded immediately following the conclusion of an undercover operation if the complexity, or potential compromise, of the investigation means compliance with the general principles for recording crime is not possible. In the case of covert operations, the general principle is that one crime should be recorded per offender, or group of offenders, per incident.
• A revised Crime Detections section, as a result of feedback from forces. This includes the changes: the basic detection principle “sufficient evidence to charge” has now been incorporated within each method of detection; non sanction detections will only be recognised for indictable only offences that specifically relate to D1 (Offender dead) or D6 (Crown Prosecution Service decide not to prosecute).
• A new way of reporting and recording cheque and plastic card offences. This is intended to significantly reduce the bureaucratic burden on the police and has been supported by ACPO and the finance industry.

The new system for recording certain types of fraud, i.e. cheque, plastic card offences or on-line bank account fraud, came into force on April 1 2007.

The general principle will be that:

• Financial institutions will encourage customers (both personal and business) to report cheque, plastic card or on-line bank account fraud to them rather than the police in the first instance.
• Fraud reported to the financial institution will then only be reported to the police if they are satisfied that there is a reasonable chance of a suspect being brought to justice through a police investigation.
• Offenders caught by police committing offences will be dealt with as though reported to police by the financial institution concerned.

Account holders attempting to report cheque, plastic card or online bank account fraud offences at police stations should be asked in the first instance if they have been specifically told to do so by their financial institution.

If they have not they should be told to contact their financial institution who will deal with the account holder. It is necessary to record a crime related incident at this point.

If the financial institution wishes an account holder to report the crime to the police direct, it will give the account holder a reference number to give to the police, either in the form of a letter or verbally. In this case, the account holder will be asked to report it to their local police, who must then record a crime related incident.

Financial institutions reporting cheque, plastic card or online bank account fraud to police will give the case or cases to the force area based on the following set of principles, which are listed in order of priority; and it is only when a principle cannot be achieved or is not known that the next principle will apply:

• 1st – The police force area covering the location of the fraudulent operation.
• 2nd – The police force area with the greatest number of individual usages.
• 3rd – The police force area where the first offence was committed.
• 4th – The police force area where the victim is located.

These