Complaints against police officers 804/2025

FOI Reference: 804/2025

Request

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information. Please may you provide me with:

1. (i) The top 10 police officers with the most public complaints/allegations about their behaviour in the last decade (calendar years 2014-2024). Please include the number of allegations made, and whether they are still in post. I am not seeking the names of the officers.
   (ii) If no longer in post, please provide the reason(s) why.
2. The number of officers with public complaints made against them in the last decade (calendar years 2014-2024) broken down by category e.g. misuse of vehicles, sexual misconduct, abuse of position etc.
3. How many of the complaints under sexual conduct, abuse of position/corruption and discriminatory behaviour in the last decade (calendar years 2014-2024) were investigated further in each category (please give exact figures), and how many were found to have a ‘case to answer’ in each of these three categories?
4. The number of officers who have undergone or are undergoing additional training in relation to the complaint(s) made in the last decade (calendar years 2014-2024).
5. The number of officers no longer in post following an investigation from a public complaint in the last decade (calendar years 2014-2024).

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 of 1,000 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 respect the whole of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. In light of this and in order to accurately obtain the information relative to your request for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and manually reviewing 6,000 records.

It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single record in respect of your request.  There are 6,000 records between 2014 – 2024.  In order to answer question 1, 2 & 3, each record per year would need to be interrogated.  Some records contain multiple allegations and multiple officers. We would then to need to calculate how many complaints each officer had and then which officers were in the top 10 (Q1); calculate the number of complaints per category (Q2) and conduct further research to ascertain if any further disciplinary action was taken in respect of these complaints (Q3).

In order to answer question 4 & 5, each record would need to be interrogated to establish as to whether an officer had undergone/is undergoing training as a result of the complaint (Q4) or if an officer was no longer in post due to a complaint (Q5).

The process outlined results in the below time estimate.

Between 2014 - 2024

6,000 records x 10 minutes per record = 1,000 hours

Time estimate to complete task = 1,000 hours

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 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 10/09/2025)