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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 872-2021
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 21st October 2021 as follows:
Q1: How many reports of spiking* have you received in each calendar year since (and including) 2010 at your constabulary? Please include the statistics for 2021 so far.
Q2: How many arrests have been made for criminal offences following a report of spiking* in each calendar year since (and including) 2010 at your constabulary? Please include the statistics for 2021 so far.
*Spiking in this regard means both reports of substances being added to drinks and also applied through injection.
Please see Warwickshire Police response below.
Response: Please be advised that there is no specific offence of ‘spiking’ and in order to attempt to determine the number of offences where this could be a factor, it would be necessary to examine all recorded crimes during the stated period. This would take an inordinate amount of time which would exceed 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.
In accordance with s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
As a gesture of goodwill, and in order to provide assistance, the business area has conducted a keyword search of all offences, during the stated period, where relevant terms such as ‘spiked’, ‘drink spike’, ‘spike’, ‘spiking’ etc. appear within the MO Description. The resulting records have been reviewed to check for relevance and to remove false positives, such as ‘spiked hair’ etc. I have provided the result of these searches below. This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests
It is important to note that in the event that there are relevant offences recorded, but where the keywords are not present within the MO description, then these will not be returned within the search. For this reason information retrieved by way of a keyword search cannot be assumed to be entirely accurate.
Having reviewed all of these results I can confirm that none of the reports contained instances of spiking by injection. As stated already, in order to attempt to determine the number of offences where this could be a factor, it would be necessary to examine all recorded crimes during the stated period. This would take an inordinate amount of time which would again exceed the amount we are legally required to respond.
Year |
Total Offences |
2010 |
1 |
2011 |
3 |
2012 |
1 |
2013 |
0 |
2014 |
2 |
2015 |
6 |
2016 |
8 |
2017 |
10 |
2018 |
7 |
2019 |
8 |
2020 |
7 |
2021 - to 23/10/2021 |
22 |
Total |
75 |
In relation to the above figures, there have been a total of 9 arrests.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB