Acid/corrosive substance attacks 269/2024
FOI Reference: 269/2024
Request:
- Based on your latest available data, how many acid/corrosive substance attacks have been recorded by your police force over the past 10 years? Can you break the victims down by age and gender if possible.
- Provide all recorded outcomes for these crimes, or whichever outcomes you select.
- How many attempted or threatened acid/corrosive substance attacks have there been over the past five years?
Provide all recorded outcomes for these crimes, or whichever outcomes you select.
For both of the above questions, if possible, can you say what substance was used/threatened to be used, e.g. household bleach.
If possible, please provide all requested data broken down by year by calendar year. Spreadsheet format preferred if possible.
If it is not possible to provide a breakdown by calendar year, please provide a combined total for as many years as you have available.
Clarification Qs:
Are you referring to incidents or crimes? Please note an incident is different from a crime. An incident is a record of contact made to a police force by an individual/member of public (usually via a 999 or 101 call) and a crime is where the threshold has been met for the police force to deem that a criminal offence has occurred as defined by law.
Are you referring to those persons charged to court or found guilty at Court?
Clarification As:
The answer to both of your questions would be both if possible. So incidents and crimes, and persons charged to court and/or found guilty at court.
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 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. minimum of 47,229 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information department has been advised that some of the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that there is no specific category to record ‘acid attacks’ and some force systems do not allow for keyword searches to be carried out.
In relation to incidents, the system used does not allow for keyword searches to be carried out therefore an individual interrogation of all incidents recorded during the specified time period would be required in order to establish if any incidents relate to acid attacks.
In relation to crimes prior to 2017, all ‘violence with injury’ and ‘violence against the person offences’ would require an individual interrogation in order to establish if any crimes relate to acid attacks.
It has been established that there are a total of 566,748 incidents. It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 5 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single incident in respect of your request (as outlined above). The process outlined results in the below time estimate:
|
Incidents – all questions |
||
|
Year |
Total number of incidents recorded |
|
|
Pre 2020 |
An additional time estimate to the below would apply to these years |
|
|
2020 |
130045 |
|
|
2021 |
136328 |
|
|
2022 |
138304 |
|
|
2023 |
153402 |
|
|
TOTAL |
558079 |
= 46,506.58 hours |
|
Crimes – Questions 1 & 2 |
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|
Year |
Total number of incidents recorded |
|
|
2014 |
2420 |
|
|
2015 |
2915 |
|
|
2016 |
3334 |
|
|
TOTAL |
8669 |
= 722.42 hours |
Time estimate to complete task = 47,229 hours
Crimes (2017 – present)
The relevant department have advised that the requested information can be retrieved within the appropriate time limit, i.e., 18 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 17/04/2024)