Football Related Incidents of Fireworks Set Off Illegally in a Public Space 2020/21 and 2021/22

Keywords

Football, Fireworks, Illegally, Public, MO, Incidents, Hotel, Location, Arrests, Banning, Possession, Pyrotechnics

Publication Number

PUB 1424

FOI Reference Number

17075

Request Title

Football Related Incidents of Fireworks Set Off Illegally in a Public Space 2020/21 and 2021/22

Date Range

2020 to 2022

Information Requested

1) For the financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22, please tell me how many reports you have received of fireworks being set off illegally in a public space.

2) Please provide me with copies of the MOs for all firework-related incidents in 2020/21 and 2021/22 which mention the terms “football” and “hotel”, redacting any details which would otherwise fall foul of Section 40(2). For each MO, please state the a) date and b) time when the offence was allegedly committed, or if this is not available, the time when the report was made, as well as the c) location.

NOTE: For your information, I am searching for reports of football fans attempting to disturb rival clubs’ sleep by setting off fireworks outside their hotels the night before a match. Please find a media report about one such incident here for context: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11669/11713807/police-confirm-fireworks-set-off-outside-barcelona-hotel-ahead-of-liverpool-tie

Disclosure with Exemptions

Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption

Information Correct as at

N/A

Date of Disclosure

20 June 2022

Related Documents/Links

N/A

FOI 17075 Response

FOI Duty  

First Duty – Essex Police does not hold information relating to all of your request.

Second Duty – not applicable

Fact – The data in the above request is not held in a format that allows for all information to be extracted and verified.

Exemption - by virtue of Section 12(1)

Reasoning To extract data relating to fireworks set off illegally to identify those incidents that meet the criteria within this FOI would require a manual examination of all incidents, as automatic extraction is not possible via a BI query or Power BI search. A manual review would exceed the time and cost limits under the act, and in addition, this operation could also qualify as creation of data.

Duty to assist – Essex Police may be able to provide the number of incidents that include the keyword of ‘fireworks’ however the level of data return is likely to be highly inaccurate and misleading against the questions posed above.

Outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following -  Published data is available that allows for arrests and banning of individuals associated to Football, the below link gives those cases of possession of pyrotechnics

Football-related arrests and banning orders statistics | Home Office

From discussions with our Football leads, they know of no incidents where firearms were let off near hotels occupied by away clubs.