Dog Attack Data 2018-2022
Publication Number: 1528
FOI Number: 18662
Disclosure:
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) 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.
However, where exemptions are relied upon (Section 17 of FOIA), there is a requirement to provide the applicant with an explanation either:
- a) stating the fact
- b) detailing the exemption(s) in question and
- c) why the exemption applies (if not apparent).
Initial Information Request – Which has been numbered to aid with the disclosure
- How many dog attacks have been recorded in your police force area in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
- How many of the dog attacks in the last five years for which you have data have involved injury to a person or persons? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
- How many deaths have been recorded in your police force area from dog attacks in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
- How many arrests has your police force made for incidents involving dog attacks in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
Further Clarification from the Applicant - Which has been renumbered to aid with the disclosure
After discussions with other forces, I am aware that the request as currently drafted might engage the time exemption. If that is your assessment, please be aware that I would be willing to refine my request as follows:
- Provide all recorded crimes under HOCR 008/21 - Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control injuring any person or assistance dog. Other forces have said their system shows these offences began recording at the end of 2018, so to provide full yearly data the refinement would be to provide the last 4 years from 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2022.
- Provide all recorded outcomes for these crimes.
FOI Duty
First Duty – Essex Police holds some of the information relating to your request
Second Duty – See below
Fact - It is not possible to extract and verify all the data in your request
Exemption - Section 12(1)
Refusal - Section 17(5) of FOIA
Reasoning -
With regard to Question 4, Essex Police is unable to provide a report on the number of recorded dog attack incidents that resulted in an arrest. This would require a manual review of each dog attack incident record to ascertain whether an arrest was recorded and then collating the data into a bespoke report. To do so would exceed the time and cost limits of an FOI request.
Duty to assist – When refusing a request on cost (Section 12(1)/12(2), outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following
Essex Police can however, report as follows:
Caveat: The following data is correct as at 05 June 2023
- How many dog attacks have been recorded in your police force area in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
Number of dog attack incidents by year – 2018 to 2023
|
Year |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 up to 30 April |
Grand Total |
|
Total |
No data |
797 |
808 |
1373 |
1412 |
436 |
4,826 |
- How many of the dog attacks in the last five years for which you have data have involved injury to a person or persons? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
Number of dog attack incidents resulting in injury by year – 2018 to 2023
|
Year |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 up to 30 April |
Grand Total |
|
Total |
No data |
605 |
718 |
720 |
765 |
222 |
3,030 |
- How many deaths have been recorded in your police force area from dog attacks in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
Number of dog attack incidents resulting in death by year – 2018 to 2023
|
Year |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 up to 30 April |
Grand Total |
|
Total |
No data |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
- How many arrests has your police force made for incidents involving dog attacks in the last five years for which data is available? If possible, please provide data broken down by year. I don’t mind if the data is broken down by calendar year, financial year, or other 12-month reporting period.
Unable to report. See explanation above.
- Provide all recorded crimes under HOCR 008/21 - Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control injuring any person or assistance dog. Other forces have said their system shows these offences began recording at the end of 2018, so to provide full yearly data the refinement would be to provide the last 4 years from 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2022.
- Provide all recorded outcomes for these crimes.
The following data has been provided for a previous FOI request for numbers of dog causing injury offences with outcomes by financial year up to November 2022 recorded under the following HOCR codes:
- Owner of a dog allowing it to be dangerously out of control in public place and cause injury (Home Office Code - 008/21)
- Dog causing injury in a private place (Home Office Code – 008/22)
Caveat: The data is correct as at 11 November 2022
Number of recorded reports of dogs causing injury to people with outcome by financial year – 2017/18 to 2021/22
|
|
|
2017/18 |
2018/19 |
2019/20 |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
|
Outcome |
Adult Caution for Alternate Offence |
1 |
||||
|
Caution - adult |
4 |
9 |
3 |
7 |
4 |
|
|
Charged / Summonsed |
29 |
26 |
17 |
28 |
20 |
|
|
Community Resolution |
214 |
169 |
120 |
150 |
173 |
|
|
Evidential difficulties victim based |
69 |
75 |
102 |
87 |
109 |
|
|
Further Investigation Not In Public Interest (Police) |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
||
|
Investigation complete: no suspect identified |
173 |
162 |
156 |
176 |
196 |
|
|
Outcome Pending |
1 |
3 |
2 |
|||
|
Suspect identified; Victim does not support; evidential difficulties |
100 |
109 |
131 |
124 |
121 |
|
|
Suspect identified; Victim supports; evidential difficulties |
35 |
40 |
41 |
40 |
55 |
|
|
Other |
14 |
30 |
54 |
62 |
66 |
|
|
Total |
638 |
622 |
626 |
678 |
748 |
Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries, the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.
The following articles available via our publication scheme may also be of interest:
Dog Attacks 2018 to 2023 | Essex Police
Dangerous Dogs Seized and Destroyed in 2022 | Essex Police
Dangerous Dogs Seized 2017 to 2021 | Essex Police
Seized Dogs June 2019 to May 2020 | Essex Police
Seizures of Dangerous & Banned Breed Dogs 2022 | Essex Police
Types of Dogs Seized by the Police for Being Dangerously Out of Control 2019 to 2021 | Essex Police
Offences 008/21 & 008/22 - Dogs 2017 to 2022 | Essex Police