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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 691-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 25th July 2023 as follows:
Q1. Please could you provide me with the latest reports of drink and needle spiking, reported to your police force for each month from 1st January 2018- 31st March 2023?
Q2. Can you please break down how many incidents were drink spiking and how many were needle spiking?
Q3. Can you please list how many victims were male and how many were female?
Q4. And how many people have been charged following the reports of these spiking incidents?
Q5. What age was the youngest victim?
On 31st July 2023 you provided the following clarification:
This is clarification in relation to my request this week about spiking offences.
Following guidance from some forces – would it be possible to use the following codes when searching your systems?
088/05 – Administering a substance with intent
008/02 – Administering poison with intent to injure or annoy
005/10 – Administering poison so as to endanger life
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in providing the response to your request and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that there is no specific offence of ‘spiking’.
The law states that:
“It is a crime to maliciously administer, cause to administer or cause to be taken by any other person, any poison or destructive or noxious thing, such as to endanger their life, cause them grievous bodily harm, or intentionally injure, aggrieve, or annoy them”.
Examples of this include:
This list is not exhaustive and there are other behaviours that may be considered relevant depending on the circumstances of the case.
With this in mind, and following receipt of your clarification, a search was conducted for all crimes, recorded between 1st January 2018 and 31st March 2023, which have been classified as one of the following offences:
Please note again that there is no offence of spiking. The above investigations will be recorded where it is alleged that someone (known or unknown) may have maliciously administered or caused to be administered, or caused to be taken by any other person, any poison or destructive or noxious thing, such as to endanger their life, cause them grievous bodily harm, or intentionally injure, aggrieve, or annoy them.
The resulting crimes have then been manually reviewed to determine if the circumstances would be best described as the administering of a substance or poison via a drink or needle. Please note that this has been based on the information recorded within the MO description field, and the interpretation of this by the reviewing individual. Therefore, as the process is subjective, the results should be treated with caution.
Q1 response: 73 crimes were located using the search criteria set out above.
Q2 response: Of these, 57 best described as allegedly administered by drink, and 16 best described as allegedly administered by needle.
Q3 response: Gender of alleged victim: Female: 51, Male: 31, Not recorded: 11.
Q4 response: As at the date of your request, none of the completed investigations had resulted in charges. Please note that due to the methods employed in relation to these offences, it is often not possible to identify a suspect.
Q5 response: 10 years old.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible. However, it is important to note that the data has been extracted from several data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Therefore, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are considered when interpreting the data.
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