POLICE over-counted the number of homicides in North Wales by almost four times over a five-year period.

According to Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones, North Wales Police reported 147 homicides to the Homes Office for the period from 2013 to the first quarter of 2018.

In reality, there were 33 such killings during that time.

These numbers were collected by the Home Office and sent to the Office of National Statistics where they were published on the ONS website. Mr Jones said his office discovered the problem in the last few weeks and had raised it with North Wales Police and the Home Office.

The numbers have now been corrected, he told members of the North Wales Police and Crime Panel, meeting today in Conwy.

In his report to members, he said: “I have queried these errors with the force and, following a briefing, have been advised that the statistics are incorrect, partly due to the tri force collaboration of records management system.

“Due to the change in the format of the crime reference number, historical records from the old legacy management system have been released in our crime extract to the Home Office, making it appear like there have been additional crimes.

“This is effectively double counting previously recorded ones.”

The highest figure recorded there had been 22 homicides in the fourth quarter of 2017, when there was in fact one.

Mr Jones added: “This is a very good example of North Wales Police downloading information and feeding it into the ONS through the Home Office without quality assuring it.

“22 homicides in a year cannot possibly be right. These are big city figures.”

“When we saw this, we challenged this and, sure enough, this information is wrong.”

“This came about purely by scrutiny by my office challenging the force. Where I want to go with this next is: if this is wrong for homicides, then how many more are wrong for other crimes?”

The Home Office is expected to publish corrected figures in October.