FOI 168-2025 / Feb 2025 / Sextortion
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 168-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 5th February 2025 as follows:
Under the Freedom of Information Act, we kindly request the following statistics on sextortion crimes recorded by your police force over the past five years. Could you please give us a yearly breakdown based on the below:
- The total number of reported sextortion cases.
- The number of victims who were under the age of 18.
- A breakdown of the victims by gender.
- The number of cases where the victim has died by suicide following the crime.
- The number of cases where the victim has attempted suicide following the crime.
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. There is no specific offence of ‘sextortion’ and such circumstances would be recorded under offences of 35 ‘Blackmail’ or 008/71 ‘Disclose or threats to disclose private sexual photographs/film with intent to cause distress’. In order to first determine whether such offences relate to ‘sextortion’ it would be necessary to review each and every one on an individual basis. This would involve reviewing over 1000 records and, at a minimum of 2 minutes per record, this equates to in excess of 33 hours of work. However, with regard to those records where it is determined that ‘sextortion’ is relevant, the time would be greater in order to determine whether or not any further information is held in relation to Q4 & Q5. Therefore, for these reasons, such searches would exceed the fees limit (£450) as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in relation to this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and in relation to refining your request; however, due to the amount of records which would need to be examined, I am unable to suggest a way to pare down your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit unless you were to reduce the time period required to, say, one year.
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