Illegal abortion 887/2023

FOI Reference: 887/2023

Request:

Specifically, I am requesting information on any reports of illegal abortion, coercing/forcing a miscarriage, or similar, and the method of doing so. I request that the number of incidents/reports for the last decade (2012-now) be broken down by suspect (e.g. the pregnant woman and/or third party(ies) such as a boyfriend, random attacker etc.), and alongside this, request the following be specifically denoted: the method of miscarriage/abortion (e.g. instruments, physical assault, women deliberately injuring themselves, etc. If pills were used, please denote the provider they were obtained from and if obtained after a telemedicine consultation or in person consultation); gestation of the pregnancy, and the final outcome of each report (e.g. if applicable please disclose whether there was a guilty plea, prosecution / trial, conviction, and any sentence, or if it was determined it was a miscarriage and a woman was wrongfully investigated, etc.).

Also broken down by suspect please denote the total number of arrests and total number of charges and under what legislation each arrest occurred / charge was brought (most likely HOC 14: Procuring illegal abortion; HOC 15: Concealing infant death close to birth; HOC 4/03 Child destruction, but could be under other legislation related to battery, grievous bodily harm, poisoning, etc.).

Clarification: Incidents and Crimes. For both final outcome (e.g. for incidents, please note why it did not reach the threshold of a crime). 

Arrests related to illegal abortions since 2012, specifically any logged under HoC codes 4.3, 14 (could be further categorised under 14.1 and 14.2), and 15. 

Please note I am also seeking information on if an offender was charged, whether or not an arrest occurred. 

 

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.

Dyfed-Powys Police are unable to confirm or not whether we hold information relevant to your request, 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.

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 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 25,757 hours) to comply with this part of 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 relation to the request for incidents is not held in an easily retrievable format.

Therefore, in order to ascertain if there is any information relevant to your request, every incident record created during the timeframe specified would require interrogation to see if there are any relevant details pertinent to your request.

It has been established that there are a total of 154,545 incidents recorded in 2022 alone that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take an average of 10 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

154,545 incident records x 10 minutes per record = 25,757 hours

A Ten year estimate would therefore be approximately 257,570 hours

A response in regards to crimes can be provided within the appropriate time limit, i.e. 18 hours, however, there is a strong possibility that significant exemptions will be applied.

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. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

 

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 03/07/2024)