299/24 Apostates

 

 

FOI Reference: 299/2024

 

Request:

Context for research

 

• Apostasy is defined as leaving or changing your religion or belief. The right to change religion or belief is protected under the Human Rights Act, Article 9, Freedom of thought conscience and religion.

 

• CPS has confirmed that religious hate crime laws include crimes against apostates, within the ‘Definition of a religious group’. Hate crime statistics for England and Wales do not include apostasy as a category, and therefore numbers are unknown, however crimes against apostates could possibly be recorded as ‘no religion’, ‘unknown’ or ‘other’. College of Policing guidance confirms that forces can “extend their local policy response to include hostility against other groups or personal characteristics, they believe are prevalent in their area or that are causing concern to their community.” Therefore it is possible that forces hold local records of hate crime towards apostates.

 

• The purpose of my research is to understand the experiences of apostates, and how hate crime, domestic abuse and other relevant legislation can protect and support them. An online summary of my research is linked here.

 

• I am sending this FOI request to all police forces in England and Wales to benchmark national practice. Following this I would like to hold interviews with approximately 10 police forces, (ideally specialist officers in hate crime, domestic abuse, honour abuse) to collect more detailed data on how crimes against apostates may be handled. If your force would like to take part, please provide contact details and I will provide further information.

 

FOI questions

1) Does your force record crimes against apostates, within formal or informal records?

 

2) If yes, please provide data for the last 5 years, including the type of offence, the religion or belief of the perpetrator, and of the victim. Please detail any prosecuted cases including the outcome, and also No Further Action (NFA) cases, or any other relevant data.

 

3) Has leaving or changing religion or belief been recorded as a factor for any offences relating to; domestic abuse, coercive control or honour-based violence, or hate crimes against different protected characteristics e.g. sexual orientation? If yes, please provide data for the last 5 years.

 

4) Does your force have any formal or informal policy or operational guidance relating to crime against apostates?  If yes, please can you provide detail on which policies or operational guidance this is found in and provide a copy of the full text for relevant sections.

 

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 Section1(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 questions 1-3 of 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 questions 1-3 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 21.2 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 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 questions 1-3 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all crimes where ‘religious hate’ was a recorded factor and whether the victim identified as ‘Apostate’.

 

It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2019-2023) there are a total of 212 crimes reports that would require researching.

 

It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 6 minutes to research a single incident for relevance to questions 1-3 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.

 

2019: 25 crimes x 6 minutes = 2.5 hours

2020: 42 crimes x 6 minutes = 4.2 hours

2021: 38 crimes x 6 minutes = 3.8 hours

2022: 30 crimes x 6 minutes = 3.0 hours

2023: 77 crimes x 6 minutes = 7.7 hours

 

Total time estimate to complete whole request = 21.2 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, 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.

Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided the following information, which I trust you will find helpful. It does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

 

Question 1

No, apostasy is not recorded as a standalone category within our crime recording system.

 

Question 4

Dyfed-Powys Police does not have any formal or informal policy or operational guidance specifically relating to crime against apostates.

                                                                                                           

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 20/03/2024)