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Dozens of people in the West Midlands have been attacked with acid, boiling water and lit cigarettes in the past three years.

West Midlands Police have recorded 57 crimes where the perpetrator used various acids, red-hot water or cigarette burns in the past three years.

The vast majority of these crimes were classed as violence against the person but there were also two robberies and one sexual offence.

(Image: Roland Leon/Daily Mirror)

In total the police recorded 22 offences in 2015 and 28 in 2016. The force has already recorded seven so far in 2017 up to April, with detectives still investigating three of them.

Almost half - some 26 - of these cases were in Birmingham, with the remainder spread throughout the West Midlands. Nationally there were at least 1,300 crimes involving acid or other harmful chemicals in the UK, Freedom of information responses show.

The figures were revealed after a spate of five acid attacks last Thursday night in London. Statistics also include an incident when a victim was sprayed on purpose with carpet cleaner in Malvern, Worcestershire last year.

In Northampton three people were attacked by three others believed to be carrying battery acid in February this year. In March, a woman from Leicester was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted murder of her boyfriend by pouring sulphuric acid on him.

Katie Leong blinded Daniel Rotariu in the appalling attack last July leaving him blinded, disfigured and in a coma for six weeks. More than half of all the 1,375 cases provided by 29 forces were in London with 243 alone in one borough - Newham, east London.

There was a big year-on-year rise in the nationwide total of almost half, from 463 in 2015 to at least 686 in 2016. So far this year forces have recorded at least 191 cases.

DATA - CRIMES INVOLVING ACID OR OTHER CHEMICALS,

2015-17