Victim’s Right to Review (VRR) Requests Submitted in 2021
Keywords
Victim, Right, Review, VRR, Requests, Submitted, Cases, Qualifying, Non-qualifying, Criteria, Criterion, Suspect, Identified, Interviewed, Filed, Source, Allegations, Complained, Victim, Recorded, Offence, Court, Disposal, Complaint, Refuses, Co-operate, Investigation, Decision, Charge, CPS, Rape, Sexual, Assault, Domestic, Violence, Overturned, Enquiries, Upheld, Determined.
Publication Number
PUB 1069
FOI Reference Number
16599
Request Title
Victim’s Right to Review (VRR) Requests Submitted in 2021
Date Range
2021
Information Requested
1. How many Victim’s Right to Review (VRR) requests were submitted to your force in 2021?
2. How many of the VRR requests received were “qualifying” cases for VRR?
3. Cases are non-qualifying when they fall within the criteria below. Please state how many cases were deemed to be non-qualifying for each criterion below.
(a) Cases where no suspect has been identified and interviewed, for instance investigations that are filed ‘at source’;
(b Cases where charges are brought in respect of some (but not all) allegations made or against some (but not all) possible suspects;
(c) Cases where a charge is brought that relates to the matter complained about by the victim but the offence charged differs from the crime that was recorded; for instance the suspect is charged with common assault but an offence of actual bodily harm has been recorded;
(d) Cases which are concluded by way of out of court disposal; and
(e) Cases where the victim retracts their complaint or refuses to co-operate with the investigation and a decision is therefore taken not to charge/not to refer the case to the CPS for a charging decision.
4. How many of those VRR requests concerned reports of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence?
5. How many of these VRR requests were deemed to be non-qualifying?
6. Please give the numbers that were non-qualifying for each criterion.
7. Of the qualifying VRRs in 2021, how many resulted in:
a. The original decision being overturned or further enquiries being made;
b. Upheld the original NFA decision;
c. Have yet to be determined.
8. Of the qualifying VRRs in 2021 concerning domestic or sexual violence, how many resulted in:
a. The original decision being overturned or further enquiries being made;
b. Upheld the original NFA decision;
c. Have yet to be determined.
Disclosure with Exemptions
Part Disclosure with Section 12 Exemption
Information Correct as at
12 January 2022
Date of Disclosure
01 February 2022
Related Documents/Links
Victim’s Right to Review Process
FOI 16599 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 Questions 4 and 8, 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 reviewing each crime record one by one to establish if it was a Domestic Abuse Crime. 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:
Caveats:
The data is correct as at 12 January 2022.
The Victim’s Right to Review Process records only the Offence/Crime Type. No record is kept of whether the Offence/Crime is in relation to a Domestic Abuse/Violence Incident. Therefore, we are not currently able to determine how many Offences/Crimes were in relation to Domestic Abuse/Violence.
When applicable, the below figures are in relation to Rape and Sexual Assault Offence Types only.
1. How many Victim’s Right to Review (VRR) requests were submitted to your force in 2021?
183.
2. How many of the VRR requests received were “qualifying” cases for VRR?
153.
3. Cases are non-qualifying when they fall within the criteria below. Please state how many cases were deemed to be non-qualifying for each criterion below.
|
Non-Qualifying Criteria |
Number of Cases in 2021 |
|
(a)1 |
2 |
|
(b)2 |
0 |
|
(c)3 |
0 |
|
(d)4 |
1 |
|
(e)5 |
3 |
|
Other (explained below) |
24 |
Other reasons for VRR to be deemed as non-qualifying:
* Suspect identified but not interviewed under caution
* Time limit exceeded
* Cases closed as further action being taken by another body or agency
* Case is a non-crime incident
* Decision to close was made by CPS
* Case outside statutory prosecution time limit
* VRR had already been conducted on investigation
* On-going complaint taking precedent over VRR.
4. How many of those VRR requests concerned reports of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence?
35.
5. How many of these VRR requests were deemed to be non-qualifying?
6.
6. Please give the numbers that were non-qualifying for each criterion.
|
Non-Qualifying Criteria |
Number of Cases in 2021 |
|
(a)1 |
1 |
|
(b)2 |
0 |
|
(c)3 |
0 |
|
(d)4 |
0 |
|
(e)5 |
1 |
|
Other (explained below) |
4 |
Other reasons for VRR to be deemed as non-qualifying:
* Suspect identified but not interviewed under caution
* Time limit exceeded.
7. Of the qualifying VRR’s in 2021, how many resulted in:
a. The original decision being overturned or further enquiries being made:
29.
b. Upheld the original NFA decision:
89.
c. Have yet to be determined.
35.
8. Of the qualifying VRR’s in 2021 concerning domestic or sexual violence, how many resulted in:
a. The original decision being overturned or further enquiries being made:
9.
b. Upheld the original NFA decision:
25.
c. Have yet to be determined.
1.
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 Force Information Management Board chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable has oversight of the Force wide programme of work to improve the quality of Force data. This work has identified data quality leads in all key areas of the business including the Crime and Public Protection Command. Liaison between the Force Data Quality Team and the Crime and Public Protection Command lead for data quality will identify and resolve issues through a variety of mechanisms to ensure regular and appropriate supervisory oversight.
Notes
[1] Cases where no suspect has been identified and interviewed, for instance investigations that are filed ‘at source’
[2] Cases where charges are brought in respect of some (but not all) allegations made or against some (but not all) possible suspects
[3] Cases where a charge is brought that relates to the matter complained about by the victim but the offence charged differs from the crime that was recorded; for instance the suspect is charged with common assault but an offence of actual bodily harm has been recorded
[4] Cases which are concluded by way of out of court disposal
[5] Cases where the victim retracts their complaint or refuses to co-operate with the investigation and a decision is therefore taken not to charge/not to refer the case to the CPS for a charging decision