FOI 419-2025 / Apr 2025 / Stalking
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 419-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 8th April 2025 as follows:
Please provide this information per financial year, for the past five years.
- The total number of stalking and harassment offences cases your police force has dealt with per financial year, for the past five years. Please display the total case numbers for stalking and harassment separately.
- The total number of stalking and harassment cases in which a physical tracking device was used. This can include an AirTag, SmartTag, Tile, GPS tracker, car tracker. Please display the total case numbers for stalking and harassment separately.
- The total number of stalking and harassment offences in which a digital tracking device was used. This can include a social media tracker, Life360, phone App tracker. Please display the total case numbers for stalking and harassment separately
- The total number of controlling / coercive behaviour cases your police for has dealt with per financial year, for the past five years.
- The total number of controlling / coercive behaviour cases in which a physical tracking device was used. This can include an AirTag, SmartTag, Tile, GPS tracker, car tracker.
- The total number of controlling / coercive behaviour cases in which a digital tracking device was used. This can include a social media tracker, Life360, phone App tracker.
- Please can you tell me the total number of Stalking Protection Orders that have been applied for by your police force?
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Q1 & Q4 response: A search was conducted for all offences under Home Office codes 8Q - Stalking, 8L – Harassment and 8U – Controlling or Coercive Behaviour, recorded in the period 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2025.
|
STALKING AND HARASSMENT |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
2022/23 |
2023/24 |
2024/25 |
Total |
|
8Q STALKING |
957 |
942 |
887 |
970 |
1084 |
4840 |
|
8L HARASSMENT |
998 |
1100 |
1173 |
1572 |
1727 |
6570 |
|
8U CONTROLLING OR COERCIVE BEHAVIOUR |
328 |
293 |
309 |
355 |
401 |
1686 |
|
Grand Total |
2283 |
2335 |
2369 |
2897 |
3212 |
13096 |
Q2, Q3 & Q6 response: Please be advised that the requested information is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific identifier to determine whether a physical tracking device was used and no flag or marker to easily identify where this is relevant to an offence. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the MO Description / Incident Summary of an investigation, these are limited free text fields and do not contain all information in relation to an investigation. In order to provide an accurate response to your request it would be necessary to review the wider investigation papers in relation to each and every offence set out in the response to Q1 on an individual basis. Such searches 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. For Police forces in the UK, the ‘appropriate limit’ is up to 18 hours of work on one request. An estimate of the cost involved is set out below:
13096 offences @ 5 minutes per offence = 65480 minutes / 60 = 1091 hours
In accordance s12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for these elements of your request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request; however, due to the volume of records which would need to be reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one which could be dealt with within the fees limit.
Q7 response: 14 (during the stated period 2020/21 to 2024/25).
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 Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB