FOI 966-2025 / Sep 2025 / Offences involving platforms Roblox & Discord
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-966-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 26th September 2025 as follows:
Q1. The total number of crimes reported to your police service that were committed on, or in connection with, the online gaming platform Roblox from 2008 to the present date.
Q2. A breakdown of the types of crimes reported (e.g., harassment, fraud, sexual offences, grooming, etc.) in relation to Roblox.
Q3. The number of these cases that have resulted in a prosecution.
Q4. The total number of crimes reported to your police service that were committed on, or in connection with, the online platform Discord from 1 January 2015 to the present date.
Q5. A breakdown of the types of crimes reported (e.g., harassment, fraud, sexual offences, grooming, Terrorism, coordinated self harm etc.) in relation to Discord.
Q6. The number of these cases that have resulted in a prosecution.
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 identifier for offences relating to ‘Roblox’ or ‘Discord’, 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.
I can advise that, due to changes in systems, it is not possible to retrieve annual information prior to 2018; however, in order to provide an accurate response with regard to offences recorded since 1st January 2019, it would be necessary to review the wider investigation papers in relation to each and every crime, recorded during the period. Given the volume of offences recorded annually by the force, such searches would take an inordinate amount of time and would undoubtedly 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 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; however, due to the volume of records which would need to be individually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
Outside of the Act, and as a gesture of goodwill, I can advise that, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out above, I have included a link to a previous request concerning this topic, where the requestor specifically asked for a keyword search to be undertaken, which you may find of interest.
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