FOI 327-2023 / Mar 2023 / Missing Items
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 327-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 27th March 2023 as follows:
Q1. A list of items/evidence that have gone missing from police buildings in the force in the following years: 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Please could you also give a description of the item/evidence involved.
Q2. If evidence, please give the nature of the offence that it was being investigated for, when seized.
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 the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. Regarding the ‘missing evidence’ part of this request, there is no identifier within the crime/case recording system to easily locate and retrieve where reference has been made to any type of evidence going missing from a police building. In order to attempt to determine a response to this part of the request, each investigation, as well as any associated documentation, would need to be manually checked. This would involve all investigations recorded in the specified period (2020, 2021 and 2022), as well as any investigations recorded prior to this that were still ongoing in this period. Such searches would take an inordinate amount of time and would exceed the cost threshold (£450) which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter is a Refusal Notice for this part of the request, and, if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit, then Section 12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request; however, due to the number of records that would need to be individually examined, I am unable to suggest a way to revise this part of the request into one that could be managed within the fees limit. In addition, the business area has advised that information regarding ‘lost items’ is not recorded, however it may be possible to provide some information for theft and burglary offences that took place in any building with the location type “Ambulance/Fire/Police Station”, or that had “Police” in the location premise name, should you wish to revise and resubmit your request.
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