Information on LGBTQ+ Victims of Homicide Since 2016
Keywords
LGBTQ+, Victims, Homicide, Name, Date, Solved, Unsolved, Rates, Prosecution, Conviction, Murders, Solved, Timeframe, Discovery, Body, Charges, Data.
Publication Number
PUB 1071
FOI Reference Number
16576
Request Title
Information on LGBTQ+ Victims of Homicide Since 2016
Date Range
2016 to 2021
Information Requested
1. I would like to request the number of LGBTQ+ victims of homicide since 2016. If you could provide the name of each victim, the date it occurred and where the homicides took place in each instance.
2. I would like to request the how many of these homicides are solved and how many remain unsolved.
3. If you could provide the rates of prosecution and conviction for those murders that were solved as well as the timeframe between discovery of the body and charges being brought.
Disclosure with Exemptions
Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption
Information Correct as at
N/A
Date of Disclosure
02 February 2022
Related Documents/Links
FOI 16576 Response
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:
In relation to Question 1, Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to the sexual orientation of homicide victims 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 reviewing each case file one by one to establish if the information is held as this is not routinely recorded.
In relation to Question 3, Essex Police do not record prosecution or conviction 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 that general Homicide statistics can be provided with Charged Outcomes 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.
You may also find the below of interest:
Homicide data can be found on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website – please see below link:
Home - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
After accessing the ONS website select People, Population and Community and then Crime and Justice from the list of values. Within that web page on the left hand side under On This Page select the link to Dataset. Next, click the link to Appendix Tables: Homicide in England and Wales and then download the xls file. Table 20 gives homicide data by Police Force area.