Police officer misconduct 59/2024

FOI Reference: 59/2024

Request:

For the period 3 March 2018 to 10 January 2024, please could you tell me:

1) The number of police officers and PCSOs in your force convicted of a crime;

2) For each officer/PCSO listed in your answer to question 1, the type of offence (assault, rape, etc), the date of the offence and the date of conviction;

3) The name, date of birth, gender and rank of each convicted officer/PCSO and their status with your force at the date of offence and now (i.e. still serving, suspended, on limited duties, resigned, sacked, etc).

For the period 3 March 2021 to 10 January 2024, please could you tell me:

4) The number of police officers and PCSOs charged with a criminal offence where the case is yet to conclude (i.e. a trial is yet to take place, plea hearing is yet to be held, etc);

5) For each officer/PCSO listed in your answer to question 4, the type of offence that they are charged with (assault, rape, etc) and the date of the alleged offence;

6) The name, age, gender and rank of each officer/PCSO charged with an offence and their status with your force both now and when the alleged offence occurred (i.e. still serving, suspended, on limited duties, resigned, sacked, etc).

 

Response 1:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

3.

Response 2:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

Assault.

Drink/Drive.

Misconduct in Public Office.

Response 3:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

2x Male

1x Female

2x PC

1x DC

Status at time: All suspended.

Status now: All dismissed.

Ages & Date of births: Section 40(2) applied

Response 4:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

0

Response 5 & 6:

n/a

 

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

• Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);
• 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 ages and dates of birth of the officers, taking into consideration the very low number of offences and other information that may already be in the public domain, 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.

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)