Multi-offender child sexual offences 629/2025 & 638/2025

FOI Reference: 629/2025 & 638/2025

Please note: request numbers 629/2025 & 638/2025 have been amalgamated due to the nature of the requests being of very similar subjects and therefore will be dealt with as a single FOI request.

Request 629/2025:

1. Ethnicity of suspects charged in cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects charged with a sexual offence or offences against a victim or victim aged under 18 at the time of the offence, where the case involved two or more offenders or suspected offenders, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects charged
• Number of Black suspects charged
• Number of White suspects charged
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects charged
• Number of suspects charged where ethnicity is Unknown 

Please indicate whether suspects’ ethnicity is recorded based on self-defined ethnicity, ethnic appearance data or other criteria.

Timeframe: Suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ of data that you can retrieve.

2. Ethnicity of suspects in ongoing cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects in all cases involving two or more offenders or suspected offenders of sexual offences against a victim or victims aged under 18 at the time of the offence that were ongoing as of 17 June 2025, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects
• Number of Black suspects
• Number of White suspects
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects
• Number of suspects where ethnicity is Unknown

Please indicate whether suspects’ ethnicity is recorded based on self-defined ethnicity, ethnic appearance data or other criteria.

3. Ethnicity of charged suspects in cases flagged as group based child sexual exploitation

What I’m requesting: Ethnicity data on suspects charged in cases flagged as “group based child sexual exploitation”, or the closest equivalent term used by your police force, broken down as follows:

• Number of Asian suspects charged
• Number of Black suspects charged
• Number of White suspects charged
• Number of Other Ethnicity suspects charged
• Number of suspects charged where ethnicity is Unknown

Please indicate whether suspects’ ethnicity is recorded based on self-defined ethnicity, ethnic appearance data or other criteria.

Timeframe: Suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ of data that you can retrieve.

Request 638/2025

4. Asylum status of suspects charged in cases of multi-offender child sexual offences

What I’m requesting: Asylum status of suspects charged with a sexual offence or offences against a child victim or victims, where the case involved two or more offenders or suspected offenders, broken down as follows:

• Number of suspects who were seeking asylum in the UK at the time of charge
• Number of suspects who were neither seeking asylum at the time of charge, nor were known to have previously sought asylum in the UK
• Number of suspects who had been granted asylum in the UK at the time of charge
• Number of suspects who had been refused asylum in the UK at the time of charge

Timeframe: Information on suspects charged in the last three calendar years (January 2022 to January 2025). If that is not possible, please provide information on suspects charged in the last three financial years (March 2022 to March 2025). If that is not possible, please provide the most recent 12 months’ worth of data that you can retrieve.

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.

I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to question 4 of this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

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. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:

Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to 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. between 19 - 37 hours) to comply with 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 respect of question 4 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. The relevant department have reviewed the request and established that the required data is not currently retrievable through existing data reporting products and an existing script does not exist. Consequently, the steps required to initially understand if the data is available and subsequently complete the required extraction, verification, and analysis, through the writing of a new bespoke script, would exceed 18 hours. A breakdown of the steps required and the estimated time it would take per step is detailed below:

Total of 19 - 37 hours to complete task and request

In accordance therefore 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 the Freedom of Information Unit.

Please note: A response to questions 1,2&3 of you request can be provided within the 18 hour time limit but only for the period of May 2023 – 2025.  At this time it is unknown if a response can be provided within 18 hours in respect of the data for questions 1, 2 &3 prior to May 2023.  As this request has already exceeded the 18 hour time limit this part of the request has not been progressed any further. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 09/07/2025)