Drink spiking - 207/18

Date Responded 09 March 2018

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. How many crimes were reported to the police relating to "drink spiking" or "drink lacing" for each year in the past three years.

2. How many arrests were made relating to "drink spiking" or "drink lacing" for each year in the past three years.

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.

A search of all crimes created between 01/01/2017 and 31/12/2017 for the following offences was conducted;

005/10 - Administering poison so as to endanger life

008/02 - Administering poison with intent to injure or annoy

088/05 - Administering a substance with intent

A further search for any crime created within the above date period where the method/means was 'SPD' (Spiked Drink) were also included.

To establish arrest figures, each crime included in the above count has been reviewed to see if an arrest was made. As drink spiking is not covered by one particular Home Office code, we can only review the crimes from the original search. Therefore it is possible there may be more arrests than reported here.

Therefore if you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data, we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

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

2015 – 9

2016 – 26

2017 – 21

2015 – 4

2016 – 4

2017 – 4

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.