Domestic abuse - 719/18

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:

I am writing to request anonymous information about domestic violence crimes where the victim is aged 60 and over that have been reported and recorded by your constabulary.

1. Please could you state the annual total number of domestic violence crimes recorded where the victim is aged 60 and over during each of the 2015, 2016, 2017 calendar years and this year to date.

For each crime you have recorded in the annual totals, please could you provide a further breakdown including;

Age of victim at the time of the offence

Age of perpetrator at the time of the offence

Gender of perpetrator

Gender of victim 

Relationship of perpetrator to the victim

In Response:

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, however, cannot be disclosed for the following reasons.

We do not have the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim available for crimes.  This would involve a manual review of all crimes and would exceed the permitted 18 hours of the Act.

 However, in order to provide you with some information relative to your request, we have based the search on domestic abuse records. 

 Firstly, to be clear on the information that we have provided to you, searches were made on the cross government definition of domestic violence/abuse only, which is outlined  below.

The definition of domestic violence and abuse is: any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members ie  mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, grandparents, in-laws and step family, regardless of gender or sexuality. 

 The data was collated through a search of all DV records where the victim was 60 or over at the time of the incident.  The data is broken down to a table with victims, a table with suspects and a table with the relationship.  The 2018 data is up until 30/06/2018.

 With the above in mind, I am able to disclose the located information to you as attached.