Sexting offences 911/2023

FOI Reference: 911/2023

Request:

Please confirm in the last three years how many investigations relating to child sexting, involving alleged offenders aged 18 and under, were carried out by your Force

Please specify how many people were charged following these investigations, and the age (at time of offence) for those who were charged.

Clarification:

• When I refer to sexting I am seeking to secure data on cases which relate to the distribution of an indecent photograph / pseudo-photograph of a child.
• The time period I am seeking data on is between 2019-2022.
• I am only seeking data for cases relating to offenders aged 18 and under.
• Request is relating to crimes rather than incidents.

Response:

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed-Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a) states that fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However, we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum 196.4 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that each Malicious communication crime record would need to be reviewed to identify whether it involved “sexting” and then to find the age of the victim and offender in each case.

It has been established that there are a total of 1,178  Malicious communication crime records that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

Total time estimate to complete whole request = 196.4 hours hours

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.

You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours.

Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.                                              

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 23/01/2024)