FOI 466-2023 / May 2023 / Intentional harassment, alarm or distress reports
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 466-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 2nd May 2023 as follows:
Q1. Please provide the number of cases of intentional harassment, alarm or distress (Public Order Act 1986 Sec. 4A) reported to your force between January 1st and December 31st 2022. Your force may record this under classification code 125/09. If held, please outline how many cases of causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress include a sexual element (for example, have been recorded alongside another crime type as a sexual offence, or specifies 'sexual harassment')
Q2. Please provide the above totals broken down by: age of victim (just 'child' or 'adult' is fine, but more detail is welcome if within the cost limit) and crime outcome.
Note: Please include reported crime, not *just* 'recorded' crime in the above totals. Where reports have not progressed to a recorded crime, please flag this as a crime outcome (for example, 'reported, not recorded').
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in providing the response to your request and for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that some of the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. In relation to the second part of your request, there is no specific offence or flag that would identify when a crime includes a ‘sexual element’. In order to determine a response to this part of the request, it would be necessary to manually review each and every crime of ‘Causing Intentional Harassment, Alarm or Distress’. The business area has advised that in 2022, there were 782 such offences recorded and, at a conservative estimate of 4 minutes per record to review, this would equate to in excess of 52 hours of work. This would therefore 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. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is up to 18 hours of work on one request.
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 volume of records which would need to be individually examined, I am unable to suggest a way to revise the request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
As a gesture of goodwill, a response to the first part of Q1 has been provided below, along with a response to Q2. This information was located before it was realised that not all of the information could be retrieved within the fees limit and should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.
When reviewing the below information, please be advised that a search was carried out for all offences, recorded in 2022, that were classified under the Home Office code 125/09 – Causing Intentional Harassment, Alarm or Distress, Public Order Act 1986 Sec 4a. The resulting crimes were then filtered by outcome and victim age (child has been determined as aged 17 and under, adult as 18 and over). Please note that in some cases there are more than one victim per crime, and therefore the total number of victims is more than the total number of crimes. In addition, in some cases the victim was recorded as a business not an individual.
|
2022 - Intentional harassment, alarm, or distress (125/09) |
|
|
Outcome Type |
Total |
|
Type 1 - Charged/Summonsed/Postal Requisition |
31 |
|
Type 1A - Charged/Summons - alternate offence. Offender has been charged under the alternate offence rule. |
16 |
|
Type 2 - Caution Youth |
1 |
|
Type 3 - Caution Adult |
5 |
|
Type 3A - Caution Adult - alternate offence. Offender has been given a simple caution under the alternate offences rule. |
2 |
|
Type 6 - Penalty notice for disorder |
2 |
|
Type 8 - Community resolution (Crime) |
6 |
|
Type 11 - Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Below The Age Of Criminal Responsibility |
3 |
|
Type 12 - Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Too Ill (Physical Or Mental Health) To Prosecute, or confirmed died either before crime reported or before enough evidence to charge |
5 |
|
Type 14 - Evidential Difficulties Victim Based- Suspect Not Identified: Crime Confirmed But The Victim Either Declines Or Unable To Support Further Police Investigation To Identify The Offender |
84 |
|
Type 15 - Named Suspect Identified: Victim Supports Police Action But Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action |
183 |
|
Type 16 - Named Suspect Identified: Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action: Victim Does Not Support (Or Has Withdrawn Support From) Police Action |
353 |
|
Type 17 - Prosecution Time Limit Expired: Suspect Identified But Prosecution Time Limit Has Expired |
8 |
|
Type 18 - Investigation Complete; No Suspect Identified. Crime Investigated As Far As Reasonably Possible-Case Closed Pending Further Investigative Opportunities Becoming Available |
78 |
|
Type 20 - Further action resulting from the crime report will be undertaken by another body or agency subject to the victim (or person acting on their behalf) being made aware of the act to be taken |
2 |
|
Type 22 - Diversionary, educational or intervention activity, resulting from the crime report, has been undertaken and it is not in the public interest to take any further action. |
1 |
|
Ongoing/not filed |
2 |
|
Grand Total |
782 |
|
Victim age (adult or child) |
Total |
|
Adult |
718 |
|
Child |
70 |
|
Not recorded |
4 |
|
Grand Total |
792 |
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