FOI 464-2024 / Apr 2024 / Racist attacks
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 464-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 29th April 2024 as follows:
I am seeking data on number of racist attacks against convenience stores. I believe there is a strong public interest for this information to be published due to the safety risk posed to both businesses.
Please can you supply the following information:
1) The number of businesses who were victims of reported verbal and physical racist attacks for the periods of 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2022 and 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023.
I would like information restricted to the following types of businesses; convenience store, corner shop, grocery store, supermarket, newsagent, symbol group, tobacconist, off licence and independent retailer.
2) Whether the attack was physical or verbal.
3) The ethnicity of the victim.
Ideally, I would like these figures broken down month-on-month.
On 30th April 2024 we contacted you as follows:
Where you have referred to verbal and physical racist attacks, please be advised that there are no specific crimes of this description. Therefore, we will require you to identify the offences that you require information on. Please see attached the Home Office Rules for Recording Crime document to assist you.
For example, for physical attacks you could select specific offences under the categories of ‘Violence with injury’ and ‘Violence without injury’ and we could search for these where a marker for ‘Hate motivated – Racial’ has been added. Alternatively, you could request information for offences under Home Office Codes 8P and 105A, which are Racially/Religiously Aggravated.
In addition, please be advised that within the crime recording system there is no offence location type of convenience store, corner shop, grocery store, newsagent, symbol group, tobacconist, off licence or independent retailer. The closest category we can select for searches of location type is ‘Shop/Store/Supermarket’. This is not manual field so is not always completed.
Please advise how you wish to proceed with your request.
On 30th April you provided the following:
Thanks for your response. I would like to proceed the terms "violence with injury" and "violence without injury", with the marker "hate motivated - racial."
On 30th April 2024 we contacted you further as follows:
Thank you for your response.
Can I also confirm that this is with a location type of Shop/Store/Supermarket?
On 30th April you provided the following response:
Yes please.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
When reviewing the information please note that it was obtained by searching for all crimes of ‘Violence with injury’ and ‘Violence without injury’, recorded between 1st January 2022 and 31st December 2023, with ‘Hate Motivated – Racial’ marker included and where the location premises type has been selected as being ‘shop/store/supermarket’ by the reporting officer.
Response: I can advise that the requested information is held; however, not all is suitable for disclosure in the format requested. Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Warwickshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
The exemption applicable in this case is:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40 is an absolute class-based exemption, which does not require evidence of the harm disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test. That being said, where Section 40(2) is engaged, in order to make the exemption absolute there needs to be evidence that a Data Protection Principle would be breached by disclosure.
This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information relates to personal data of a third party, or could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with any other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, due to extremely low numbers, providing the information broken down by month is likely to identify an individual. Such a disclosure would breach individuals’ rights under the Data Protection Act 2018, in particular Article 5(1) of the GDPR which states that personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.
This letter serves as a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act in relation to the breakdown requested. Instead information has been provided by calendar year.
|
Offence category |
2022 |
2023 |
Total |
|
VIOLENCE WITH INJURY |
1 |
|
1 |
|
VIOLENCE WITHOUT INJURY |
3 |
9 |
12 |
|
Grand Total |
4 |
9 |
13 |
|
Self Defined Ethnicity of Victim |
2022 |
2023 |
Total |
|
Asian or Asian British |
1 |
4 |
5 |
|
Black, Black British, Caribbean or African |
|
2 |
2 |
|
White |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
Not stated |
2 |
1 |
3 |
|
Grand Total |
4 |
8 |
12* |
*Please note that in one case there is no victim role attached; therefore the number of offences and the number of victims do not match.
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