Police misconduct arrests 699/2025 & 700/2025
FOI Reference: 699/2025 & 700/2025
Request:
1. For the period 1 Jan 2018 – 1 Jan 2024, how many police officers (serving or former) were:
a) Arrested as suspects in a criminal investigation
b) Voluntarily interviewed under caution (not arrested)
2. Of those arrested, how many were subsequently:
a) Charged or cautioned
b) No further actioned
c) Referred to the CPS but no charge authorised.
d) Same information as above please, for those Voluntarily interviewed.
3. Do you have any formal policies or guidance regarding the preferred use of arrest vs voluntary interview when the subject is a police officer?
Please provide the data in spreadsheet or tabular format. If the full request exceeds cost limits, please prioritise question 1 and 3.
4. The average and median length of time (in days) for criminal investigations involving police officers as suspects, from allegation to:
a) Arrest (if applicable)
b) voluntary interview.
c) Case closure or outcome (charge / NFA / referral to CPS)
5. The number of investigations into officer suspects that exceeded:
a) 6 months
b) 12 months
c) 24 months
6. The number of these investigations that involved no charges or resulted in no further action.
7. The number of investigations per year by rank.
If full detail is unavailable, please provide approximate figures or existing summaries
Response Q1
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
Between 01/01/2018 & 01/01/2024:
a) 11 x police officers (serving or former) were arrested as suspects in a criminal investigation
b) 2 x police officers were interviewed under caution
Response Q2:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
a) 2 x charged, 1 x caution, 1 x summonsed to court
b) 3 x No further actioned
c) 2 x referred to CPS but no charge
d) 3 x charged
Response Q3 & Q4:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does not hold the information requested.
Response Q5
a) Exceeded 6 months – 7 x Conduct & 5 x criminal
b) Exceeded 12 months – 2 x Conduct & 1 x criminal
c) Exceeded 24 months – N/A
Response Q6
Crime – 5 x no charges/no further action outcomes
Conduct – 6 x no case to answer
Response Q7
|
|
Constable |
Sergeant |
Inspector and above |
|
01/01/2018 – 01/01/2024 Section 40 applies to breakdown per year |
10 |
3 |
0 |
Please note: the breakdown by year has not been provided in order to reduce the risk of identifying individuals. A Section 40 exemption applies and an explanation of the exemption is detailed below.
Explanation of applied exemption: 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) 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 UK 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 rank of the officers correlated alongside the specific year, taking into consideration information that may already be in the public domain and the detailed information provided throughout this response, 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.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 18/09/2025)
|
Os oes angen y wybodaeth yma arnoch yn Gymraeg, cysylltwch â: If you require this information in Welsh, please contact: |