FOI 702-2025 / Jul 2025 / Officer suicides
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 702-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 11th July 2025 as follows:
- The number of Police officers and staff from your organisation that have died by suicide or suspected suicide (where coroner reviews have not been completed yet) each year from 2010 to 2025.
- Of those, how many died whilst on duty each year from 2010 to 2025.
- How many of those who died by suicide or suspected suicide from your organisation were under Professional Standards Department/Directorate of Professional Standards or IOPC investigation each year from 2010 to 2025.
- The number of suicides or attempted suicides from your organisation attend where the subject was a Police Officer or staff member each year from 2010 to 2025.
- The number of suicide attempts by Police officers or Police staff from your organisation each year from 2010 to 2025.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: With regard to Q4 and Q5 of your request, Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
Warwickshire Police are unable to confirm whether or not any information is held relevant to your request.
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
It may be possible that information in relation to an attempted suicide of an officer or staff member would be recorded by Occupational Health; however, this would only be stored within an individual’s personal file and not centrally recorded. In order to determine whether or not information is held, and then to ensure that all information had been located, it would be necessary to examine the personal records of each and every officer and staff member both in the current employ of the force and also any individual who has left the force during the period of the request. Therefore, the cost of complying with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) would be above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance s12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance and, where possible, suggest ways in which you may revise your request. However, due to the volume of records involved I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one that could be dealt with within the fees limit as it stands.
Outside of the Act and as a gesture of goodwill, I can advise that Warwickshire Police do not record officer/staff suicides, we record deaths, but do not record the cause of death.
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