Stops, Seizures and Prosecutions for Riding E-Scooters 2019 to 2022
Keywords
E-scooter, Electric, Scooter, Stopped, Riding, Seized, Prosecuted, Fines, Conviction.
Publication Number
PUB 1076
FOI Reference Number
16662
Request Title
Stops, Seizures and Prosecutions for Riding E-Scooters 2019 to 2022
Date Range
2019 to 2022
Information Requested
1) How many people have been stopped for riding an e-scooter each year since 2019. Eg. 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 so far.
2) How many e-scooters have been seized each year since 2019. Eg. 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 so far.
3) How many people have been prosecuted for riding an e-scooter each year since 2019?
Disclosure with Exemptions
Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption
Information Correct as at
N/A
Date of Disclosure
08 February 2022
Related Documents/Links
E-Scooter Injury Statistics 2019 to 2022
Electric Scooter Seizures 2018-2022
Criminal offences where suspect Is riding an e-scooter
Electronic Scooter Incidents/Seizures/Offences
FOI 16662 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 your request for the requested periods 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. There is no specific code for Electric Scooters/E-Scooters and we cannot differentiate between a motor vehicle or scooter for offences. This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each record where a Fixed Penalty Notice was issued, one by one to establish if the vehicle concerned was an Electric Scooter/E-Scooter, which may or may not be included in the record notes. 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.
Having said that and in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the FOIA, Essex Police can confirm the following:
In relation to Question 2, E-Scooter Seizure statistics can be found via our Publication Scheme – please see below link:
In relation to Question 3, you may wish to directly approach the HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) who hold data regarding fines, fine income and prosecutions – please see below link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service
Essex Police do not record conviction/prosecution data on the Athena Custody system, this is held by the Crown Prosecution Service – please see below link:
https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/freedom-information
Section 16(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is required to provide advice and assistance, Essex Police can confirm that the number of E-Scooter related incidents by Report Summary could be provided if required by undertaking a keyword search of the Incident Comments. The number of E-Scooter related crimes by Offence and Outcome Types could also be provided if required by undertaking a keyword search of the Initial Modus Operandi Field. However, there will be a high degree of inaccurately as it would depend on how the terminology has been recorded. Any keyword search may not be entirely accurate and any results would not necessarily answer your submission, and, therefore, could be highly inaccurate and misleading.
For a keyword search to be undertaken, you would need to provide a list of keywords you would like searched.
Please see below link to the FOI Publication for 2019 and 2020 statistics:
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.