Controlling and coercive behaviour 1266/2025

FOI Reference: 1266/2025

Request:

1. How many offences have there been of 008/67 (Home Office Code) reported between January 1st, 2020, to December 30th, 2025?
2. Please can you provide the outcome for each of these reported offences?
3. Please can you also provide the gender of the victim and the accused, i.e. male or female?
4. Please can the data be provided in an excel spreadsheet, broken down year by year, under the specific offence code, i.e. 2020, 008/67 (engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour in an intimate / family relationship)?

Clarification sought:

1. When you state "reported" are you referring to 101/999 calls received?
2. If so, please can you confirm if Q2. Relates 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.

Clarification received:

• I am referring to recorded reports of this specific offence, be it by phone or in person between that set timeframe.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I assume, each time you receive a report of this offence, you have to record it and there will be an assigned outcome for that report, however it is communicated to the police force?

Response 1:

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

Response 2:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested; however we are exempting part of that information as we believe that the following exemptions are relevant:

Section 30(1)(a) Investigations and Proceedings conducted by Public Authorities

Section 30(1)(a) is a class-based qualified 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. However, there is a requirement to carry out a Public Interest Test in order to establish whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption may be outweighed by a wider public benefit in disclosure.

Section 30(1)(a) Investigations and Proceedings conducted by Public Authorities:

(1) Information held by a public authority is exempt information if it has at any time been held by the authority for the purposes of -

(a) Any investigation which the public authority has a duty to conduct with a view to it being ascertained (i) whether a person should be charged with an offence, or (ii) whether a person charged with an offence is guilty of it.

Public Interest Test

Considerations favouring disclosure:

Disclosure of the information would improve the public’s knowledge and awareness and would provide satisfaction to the public that these cases are investigated thoroughly and offenders are being dealt with accordingly.

Considerations favouring non-disclosure:

This exemption covers information held at any time for the purpose of an investigation, whether the case is ongoing, closed or abandoned. To release specific details of an ongoing investigation, as in this case, could undermine and prejudice those investigations. This would impact on the forces’ future law enforcement capabilities by hindering the prevention or detection of crime.

Balancing Test

After considering the advantages and disadvantages in disclosure, it falls upon Dyfed-Powys Police to conduct a balance test on the issues. The strongest argument for disclosure, which is public awareness, needs to be weighed against the strongest arguments for non-disclosure, which in this case is that the release would undermine and prejudice ongoing investigations, which would impact on the forces’ future law enforcement capabilities by hindering the prevention or detection of crime.

Therefore, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Please note: A total of 281 offences have been removed from the breakdown of information below due to the fact that Section 30 exemption applies to those offences.

Please note: Data is split between pre-NICHE (new police computer software system incorporated in May 2023) and post-NICHE.

Response 3 & 4:

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

Pre-NICHE

Post-Niche

_____________________

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 04/02/2026)