Female victims of homicide 446/2026

FOI Reference: 446/2026

Request:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request a detailed breakdown of data regarding female homicide victims recorded by your force between 1st January 2018, to the present day.

To ensure national consistency, I am requesting the same dataset your force previously provided to the Femicide Census and/or the National Domestic Homicide Project. Please provide the following information in an Excel (.xlsx) or CSV format:

1. Annual Totals: The total number of homicide cases where the victim was female, broken down by calendar year from 2018- present. 
2. Relationship to Suspect: For each victim, record the principal suspect's relationship (e.g., Partner, Ex-partner, Parent, Child, Sibling, Other Family, Acquaintance, Stranger, or Unknown/Not Recorded).
3. Prior Police Contact (12-Month Window): For each case, state whether any police contact was recorded in the 12 months preceding the homicide. Please clarify if this contact was:
• Between the victim and the suspect specifically.
• Involved the suspect in relation to other domestic abuse incidents.
4. Suspect Gender: The sex of the principal suspect/offender for each female homicide case.

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. between 19 - 37 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244 

The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. The relevant department have reviewed the request and established that the required data is not currently retrievable through existing data reporting products, and an existing script does not exist. Consequently, the steps required to initially understand if the data is available and subsequently complete the required extraction, verification, and analysis, through the writing of a new bespoke script, would exceed 18 hours. A breakdown of the steps required and the estimated time it would take per step is detailed below:  

In accordance therefore 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 the Freedom of Information Unit. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 27/05/2026)