Women killed by partners 808/2025
FOI Reference: 808/2025
Request:
The number of women killed by a current or former partner in your force area, broken down by calendar year, for each of the past 10 years (from 2015 to 2024 inclusive).
If available, please include:
- The relationship between the victim and perpetrator (e.g., spouse, ex-partner, boyfriend, etc.)
- The age of the victim
Response:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold some of the information requested. However, some of that information has been withheld under Section 38(1)(a) Health & Safety and Section 40(2) Personal Information.
|
Year |
Amount |
Relationship |
Victim’s age |
|
2017 |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
|
2018 |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
|
2019 |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
|
2020 |
0 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
2021 |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
|
2022 |
0 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
2023 |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
S38(1) & S40(2) apply |
|
2024 |
0 |
n/a |
n/a |
Please note that pre-2017 data is not available for this request as the data is no longer held.
Explanation of the applied exemption:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) 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 Freedom of Information Act requires that we provide the applicant with a notice which:
a) States that fact
b) Specifies the exemption(s) in question and
c) State (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information that you have requested. However, we are withholding some of the information since we consider that the following exemption applies to it:
Section 38(1)(a) Health & Safety
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40 is an absolute class-based exemption and therefore there is no requirement to conduct a harm or public interest test.
The Section 38 exemption is a prejudice-based qualified exemption. There is therefore a requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information and there is a requirement to carry out a Public Interest Test in order to establish whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption may be outweighed by a wider public benefit in disclosure.
Section 38(1)(a) Health & Safety:
1. Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to –
(a) Endanger the physical or mental health of any individual,
Harm for Section 38
To release this information into the public domain at this stage, whereby detail to that level has not previously been disclosed by the force, could cause physical or mental harm to the health of any surviving relative of the deceased and to the offender(s) as to publish this information would create difficult and painful memories to family members at a time when those family members may well be within the healing process, through time, in coming to terms with what happened to their relative some time ago.
Public Interest Test
Considerations favouring disclosure - Disclosure of the information would lead to better informed public awareness on how the police conduct investigations and the use of public funds ensuring transparency in the activities of the public authority especially in high-profile cases such as murder where some information is already in the public domain.
Considerations favouring non-disclosure - Disclosure of the information would cause significant distress to the family. Releasing the information could also jeopardise the physical and mental well-being of members of the family who are only just coming to terms with events of the past in relation to such matters. Disclosure of the information would therefore result in a loss of confidence in the public authority to protect the well-being of the family and local community.
Balance Test for Section 38:
Disclosure under the Act is a disclosure to the world not just to the individual making the request. The proper detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes are cornerstones of a modern democratic society. The Police Service will never divulge information if it will hinder that core responsibility or affect the health and safety or well-being of individuals or groups of people. Although the way the Police conduct investigations, especially high-profile murder investigations, should be transparent and shared with the public they have a greater duty to protect the public from harm or distress. Therefore, in this case, the balance lies in favour of non-disclosure of the requested information.
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is a class-based absolute exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information. There is also no requirement to carry out a Public Interest Test.
Section 40(2) Personal Information:
Section 40(2) applies to third party personal data and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 if disclosure, in relation to data subject to law enforcement processing, would breach any of the data protection principles contained within Part 3 - Chapter 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Under Section 34 within Chapter 2 “The Controller in relation to personal data is responsible for and must be able to demonstrate, compliance with” Chapter 2. Such information would not be released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 unless there is a strong public interest. One of the main differences between the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018 is that any information released under FOI is released into the public domain, not just the individual requesting the information and disclosure under the Act must be made with that in mind. As such, any release that identifies an individual through releasing their personal data, even third party personal data is exempt.
Personal data is defined under Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as:
“(2) ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual (subject to subsection (14)(c)).
(3) ‘Identifiable living individual’ means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
(a) An identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
(b) One or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.”
All members of the public including those employed by the force have an intrinsic right to privacy and these rights are protected by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and a public authority must not interfere with that right. Any release of the information subject to the exemption is likely to compromise those rights.
Data Protection Act 2018
Part 3 – Law Enforcement – Chapter 2 Principles Section 35
The first data protection principle:
“(1) The first data protection principle is that the processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes must be lawful and fair.”
UK General Data Protection Regulation
Article 5 of the UK GDPR – ‘Principles relating to processing of personal data’ provides:
“1. ‘Personal data’ shall be
(a) Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);
(b) Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest…
2. The controller shall be responsible for, and be able to demonstrate compliance with, paragraph 1 (‘accountability’).”
Dyfed-Powys Police would not want to disclose any information that could potentially identify an individual. In this particular case, to release the requested data, due to very low number of offences, could lead to the identification of the individuals involved and to release such information would be a direct breach of Data Protection legislation. Therefore, as a consequence I am satisfied that Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption is applicable to the release of the information.
The Section 40 exemption is a class-based exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information.
The Section 40 exemption is in part qualified and in part absolute, in the present case it would be absolute as to release the information would breach Data Protection legislation and therefore there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test.
It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.
Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 18/08/2025)
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