Officers accused of exploitation 071/2022
FOI Reference: 071/2022
Request:
Please can you answer the following questions for each of these time periods: 2018 (calendar year); 2019 (calendar year); 2020 (calendar year) and 2021 (calendar year):
1) How many disciplinary hearings relating to an officer being accused of abusing their power for purposes of sexual exploitation were held by your force over the requested period?
Please break down this information in terms of the rank of the officer accused of such an offence (for example, but not limited to: police constable, police sergeant, senior officer); a brief description of the offence (for example, but not limited to: attempting to form an inappropriate relationship with a vulnerable woman on the course of duty); if this was a complaint from a member of the public or an internal referral; the outcome in each case (for example, but not limited to: dismissal from force without notice) with rank included; the gender of the accused officer.
I understand if some details have to be withheld but others should be allowed under the act to be disclosed. Please would you be so kind as to act in a spirit of transparency.
2) For each of the time periods, please tell me how many of the accused officers were granted anonymity at the misconduct hearing (telling me- for each case they were granted anonymity- the details of the offence they were charged with; the outcome of the hearing; the gender of the officer; the reason the presiding panel chair person gave for granting anonymity at the misconduct hearing (along with the name of the presiding officer).
3) Please could you also provide information on the misconduct panel chair (i.e. their name and gender) for all the misconduct hearings where anonymity was not granted to the accused officer(s).
Response 1:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
A total of one disciplinary hearing relating to an officer being accused of abusing their power for purposes of sexual exploitation were held by Dyfed-Powys Police in the timeframe specified.
Responses 2 & 3:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested; however we are exempting the information as we believe that the following exemption is relevant:
Section 40(2) Personal Information:
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 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.”
General Data Protection Regulation
Article 5 of the 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…
- 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 all of the further information requested, especially taking into consideration the specific nature of the request and the very low number of officers relevant, 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.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 24/02/2022)