Crimes re door staff 610/2024
FOI Reference: 610/2024
Request:
Could you please supply me with the following information concerning reports of sexual assault or physical assault involving members of the security industry, such as bouncers, doormen or any other relevant security related job title. Below are my specific questions:
How many crimes have been reported in the past five calendar years that were either sexual or physical in nature where the perpetrator had the job title of Security Guard, Door Staff, Bouncer or similar vocation?
How many reports of assault or sexual assault have been reported in the past five calendar years where the victims had the job title of Security Guard, Door Staff, Bouncer or similar vocation?
Clarification Q;
1. 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.
2. When you state reports, are you referring to 999/101 calls?
Clarification A:
I would be interested in incidents over reported crimes, either where someone has reported it to the police or the police have attended a scene.
And reports would be classed as any calls or in person reports to the police.
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 4851 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 the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to the request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents under the categories of sexual incidents and assault incidents over the time frames specified to identify if the incidents related to members of the security industry. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request there are a total 29106 incidents that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a single incident for relevance to your request as outlined above, resulting in the following time estimate.
From 01/01/2024 – 19/06/2024
There were:
707 C-sexual incidents
It would take 118 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
1922 C-Assault incidents
It would take 320 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 438 hrs.
From 01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023
There were:
1556 C-sexual incidents
It would take 259 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
4428 C-Assault incidents
It would take 738 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 997 hrs.
From 01/01/2022 – 31/12/2022
There were:
1352 C-sexual incidents
It would take 225 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
4338 C-Assault incidents
It would take 723 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 948 hrs.
From 01/01/2021 – 31/12/2021
There were:
1322 C-sexual incidents
It would take 220 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
3894 C-Assault incidents
It would take 649 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 869 hrs.
From 01/01/2020 – 31/12/2020
There were:
989 C-sexual incidents
It would take 165 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
3256 C-Assault incidents
It would take 543 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 708 hrs.
From 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2019
There were:
1227 C-sexual incidents
It would take 205 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
4115 C-Assault incidents
It would take 686 hrs to work through these incidents to gather the information required.
TOTAL = 891 hrs.
Total of 4851 hours to complete task
In accordance 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, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. 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 Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
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 01/07/2024)