Police Officer sexual misconduct 265/2024
FOI Reference: 265/2024
Request:
Information regarding reports of sexual offences and misconduct made against officers in your force between 2013 and 2024. In particular, I am writing to request information about:
- the date each report was received;
- the types of sexual offences reported
- If the report was about a sexual offence classified in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Part 1), please refer to the offence as named in that Act (e.g., 'assault by penetration', 'voyeurism').
- If the report concerned sexual misconduct which is not mentioned in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, please provide a brief description of the misconduct (e.g., 'sexual harassment via derogatory sexual comments')
- the date each offence allegedly occurred;
- whether an investigation was launched into the report;
- whether a conviction was made for each alleged offence;
- whether the offence was allegedly committed by an officer against whom a sexual offence report had been made in the past;
- If so, how many prior reports had been made against the officer and what outcome they had
- whether the alleged victim was employed by the force;
- the gender of the alleged victim and perpetrator;
- whether the offence was allegedly committed while the officer was on duty.
I would appreciate it if you could provide me with the most recent data available on the above between 2013 and 2024. The format I would like this data to be presented in is exhibited by the attached Excel file. This file includes sample data in red font, to be replaced by data concerning your force. Please fill out this Excel file with all the relevant data and send it back to me at: XXXXXXXXXX
As is shown by the attached file, I would like the data to be presented in a table with the following headers for each column:
- Date report was received (month, year)
- Date sexual offence allegedly occurred (month, year)
- Type of sexual offence/misconduct reported (if the sexual offence is classified in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Part 1), please refer to the offence as named in that Act. If not, please provide a brief description of the sexual misconduct).
- Gender of alleged victim
- Gender of alleged offender
- Was an investigation conducted into the report? (yes/no)
- Was the alleged offender found guilty of the offence? (yes/no)
- If the alleged offender was found guilty of the offence, what punitive measures were taken against them?
- Was the alleged victim employed by the force at the time of the offence? (yes/no)
- Was the alleged victim an officer in the force? (yes/no)
- If so, was the sexual offence allegedly committed while the officer was on duty? (yes/no)
- Had sexual offence reports been made against the alleged offender before this report? (yes/no)
- If sexual offence reports had been made against the officer in the past, please specify how many
- If sexual offence reports had been made against the officer in the past, please specify how many they had been found guilty of
Further notes:
- Please include information about alleged sexual offences made by offenders of any gender against victims of any gender (e.g., Male on Male, Female on Female, Female on Male, etc.)
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 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @
www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that we would have to manually extract that information from our systems. Prior to 2022, Conduct case allegations were only categorised against the breach of the Standard of Professional Behaviour
It would be anticipated that it would take 5 minutes to check each case to determine whether it involved an allegation of sexual misconduct.
The below figures show the number of recorded conduct cases for the specified years:-
The relevant time estimate to determine the information is detailed below:
2013 – 31 cases = 2.58hrs.
2014 – 35 cases = 2.91hrs.
2015 – 26 cases = 2.16hrs.
2016 – 35 cases = 2.91hrs
2017 – 23 cases = 1.91hrs
2018 – 21 cases = 1.75hrs
2019 – 31 cases = 2.58hrs
2020 - 34 cases = 2.83hrs
2021 – 32 cases = 2.66hrs.
Total number of cases - 268 cases (between 2013 – 2021) = 22.29hrs.
Other Police systems would also have to be manually checked. In order to determine the details of the request, the anticipated time that it would take to check each report is 10 minutes.
Between 2013 and 13/06/2024, there have the following number of recorded incidents reported:
Sexual incidents = 92 Incidents – 15.33hrs
Domestic reports – 324 Incidents – 54hrs
Rape incidents = 0hrs
Total number of Incidents = 416 (between 2013 – 2024)
A further breakdown of these figures are as follows:-
2013
Sexual – 2 Domestic – 6 Rape – 0 = 1.3 hrs
2014
Sexual – 7 Domestic – 5 Rape – 0 = 2 hrs
2015
Sexual – 5 Domestic – 21 Rape – 0 = 4.3 hrs
2016
Sexual – 9 Domestic – 17 Rape – 0 = 4.3 hrs
2017
Sexual – 14 Domestic – 24 Rape – 0 = 6.3 hrs
2018
Sexual – 6 Domestic – 32 Rape – 0 = 6.3 hrs
2019
Sexual – 10 Domestic – 59 Rape – 0 = 11.5 hrs
2020
Sexual – 5 Domestic – 38 Rape – 0 = 7.2 hrs
2021
Sexual – 7 Domestic – 36 Rape – 0 = 7.2 hrs
2022
Sexual – 13 Domestic – 53 Rape – 0 =11 hrs
2023
Sexual – 11 Domestic – 24 Rape – 0 = 5.8 hrs
2024
Sexual – 3 Domestic – 9 Rape – 0 = 2 hrs
Total number of Incidents = 416 (between 2013 – 2024)
Total time estimate = 69.33
Time estimate for whole request = 92 hours
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 21/06/2024)