Britain's biggest mass murders over the past 20 years
The homicide rate in England and Wales is almost 50% lower than it was 20 years ago, but spikes within the data show the awful impact of all of the mass killings of the past two decades.
The overall figures stretch back to 1970 and highlight the changing rates of killings and murders from year to year.
As part of this, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) points to atrocities as a way of explaining trends in certain years.
Here are the biggest mass murders - of five or more people - which have occurred in the past 20 years and were highlighted by the ONS in this week's data release.
7/7 bombings (2005) - 52 people murdered
A series of explosions ripped through London in co-ordinated terrorist strikes on 7 July, 2005.
The attacks on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus killed 52 people as well as the four bombers, while more than 700 people were injured.
Reflecting on the attack on the 15th anniversary in 2020, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: "The 52 innocent people who lost their lives on 7/7 remain in our hearts. Those who seek to divide our communities and destroy our way of life will never, ever, succeed.”
Two weeks later, four further bomb attacks on the capital's transport network failed, with no loss of life. Four Islamist extremists were jailed for life in 2007.
Cumbria shootings (2010) - 12 people murdered
In one of the worst firearms incidents in British history, taxi driver Derrick Bird went on a shooting rampage on the morning of 2 June, 2010.
He murdered 12 people - including his twin brother - and injured 11 others across west Cumbria.
Bird carried out the shootings across a 45-mile stretch of towns and villages in the county. He then took his own life in woodland near the village of Boot.
Westminster Bridge attack (2017) - five people murdered
On 22 March, 2017, terrorist Khalid Masood murdered four people and seriously injured 29 more after ploughing through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in a rented 4×4. He then knifed Pc Keith Palmer to death.
His 82-second rampage was brought to an end when he was shot three times by a cabinet minister’s bodyguard outside the Palace of Westminster.
Reflecting on the attack a year later, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who rushed to try and save Pc Palmer, said he remained "haunted" by the atrocity.
He told the Sunday Times: "[The doctor] looked at me and called the time of death and said: ‘Thank you. We have done all we can.' And then, as the true professionals they are, they picked up all their things and went to help the people on Westminster Bridge.”
Manchester Arena bombing (2017) - 22 people murdered
At Manchester Arena on 22 May, 2017, Salman Abedi detonated a suicide bomb device at the end of an Ariana Grande concert while 353 people, including 175 children, were around him in the foyer of the venue.
Twenty-two people were killed, with the youngest of those, Saffie-Rose Roussos, aged eight.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack since the 7/7 bombings in London 12 years earlier. More than 800 others were injured.
London Bridge attack (2017) - eight people murdered
On 3 June, 2017, three jihadists drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing revellers in nearby Borough Market with 12-inch ceramic knives.
They murdered eight people and left 48 others injured.
Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, who wore fake suicide vests, were shot dead by police minutes later.
Plymouth shootings (2021) - five people murdered*
On 12 August last year, gunman Jake Davison murdered five people in the Keyham area of Plymouth, including his mother and a three-year-old girl. Two other people were injured.
Davison, who shot himself dead following the murders, had posted a series of self-pitying diatribes on his YouTube channel in the weeks before the attack.
*This atrocity is not mentioned in the latest ONS figures because it was after March last year. However, it is likely to be referred to in next year's figures.
