Quickly exit this site by pressing the Escape key Leave this site
We use some essential cookies to make our website work. We’d like to set additional cookies so we can remember your preferences and understand how you use our site.
You can manage your preferences and cookie settings at any time by clicking on “Customise Cookies” below. For more information on how we use cookies, please see our Cookies notice.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Sorry, there was a technical problem. Please try again.
This site is a beta, which means it's a work in progress and we'll be adding more to it over the next few weeks. Your feedback helps us make things better, so please let us know what you think.
Domestic, Abuse, Incidents, Crimes, Disabled, Victims, Prosecutions, Convictions, Reported, Charged, Outcomes, Arrests, Record, Recorded.
PUB 1392
16714
Domestic Abuse Related Incidents and Crimes Suffered by Disabled Victims 2017 to 2021
01 January 2017 to 31 December 2021
I am writing to make a request for all the information to which I am entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Could you please supply me with the following information concerning the number of reports of domestic abuse and violence against disabled people, as outlined below.
Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption
N/A
01 March 2022
Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.
When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work). The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.
Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:
“…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:
Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request for the requested period from our current systems. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses.
This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each incident one by one in order to ascertain the information if held as we do not routinely record whether or not the victim of a crime suffers from a disability. We would rely on the victim telling us this and then it would need to be recorded, if relevant to the investigation.
In addition, Essex Police do not record prosecution data on the Athena Custody system (this is held by the Crown Prosecution Service). This request would entail manually extracting the requested data, manually reviewing each record one by one to establish if there was a charge and then cross referring on the Police National Computer (PNC) to establish the outcome and conviction data.
To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.
Consequently, and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA. Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.
Section 16(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is required to provide advice and assistance, Essex Police can confirm information around the volume of domestic incidents and/or crimes for a period of time could be provided if required.
Charged Outcomes of Arrests could also be provided if required.
The intention of Section 16 is to provide assistance in resubmitting a valid request. Please note that any advice and assistance under Section 16 regarding resubmission of a request does not indicate that resubmission will provide a full disclosure, each submission will be assessed and if a disclosure is deemed harmful, then the appropriate exemptions will apply.