Acid attacks - 25/18

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. Please can you tell me the number of acid attacks reported to you in each of the last five calendar years? 

2. Can you also tell me for each of the reports how many victims there were and their gender. 

3. Can you also tell me if the crime was detected or not and what the outcome was. Ie one offender arrested and charged, no offender identified etc. 

In Response:

We replied to your FOI request advising you that there were FOI’s already in the public domain that were published on the Northumbria Police Disclosure Log. You then responded with ‘We would like the information including figures up to the end of 2017, which I assume none of the FOIs below cover as they all appear to have been put in earlier in the year. Would it be possible for someone to simply update the figures so that we’ve got the complete picture for 2017? 

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention. 

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police. 

I am able to disclose the located information to you as attached.  When viewing the data the below should be noted. 

Data was collated through a search of all crimes created between 01/01/2013 and 31/12/2017 where ACI (acid), AMM (ammonia), COR (corrosive substance) or NOX (noxious substance) were listed in any of the three weapon fields attached to the crime as acid could be recorded as any of the above. 

Each crime has then been manually reviewed to determine whether an attack has taken place. Those included are crimes where the substance has been thrown as part of an attack. This includes where the substance has caused harm to the victim or where the substance was intended to cause harm (i.e. substance was thrown but missed the victim). This does not include those found in possession of one of the above substances or where the substance has been used only as part of a threat. 

These figures differ from those previously published as this data includes crimes only where a substance has been thrown.  

The gender is the victims gender where recorded. 

The outcomes given are the outcome of the crimes listed in Q1. Prior to April 2014 crimes would be given an outcome of 'undetected.'  After April 2014, the home office introduced a new outcome system and therefore crimes are no longer recorded as 'detected' and 'undetected.' Note that if the crime occurred prior to April 2014 but was not given an outcome until after this date, the crime will be given one of the new outcomes. There is one crime in the data that occurred in 2013 but has been given one of the new outcomes.