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Date Responded 19 May 2022

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:

From police recorded data, I can see that the force recorded the following offences:

Intentional destruction of a viable unborn child:

- 2020/21: 1

- 2016/17: 2

- 2013/14: 1

Procuring illegal abortion:

- 2016/17: 1

- 2015/16: 2

For each of these recorded crimes, could you please tell me if the suspect was the pregnant woman or a third party performing an act against a pregnant woman.

The data is from here:

Police recorded crime open data Police Force Area tables from year ending March 2013 onwards

You can filter these tables by offence code

  • 4/3 is intentional destruction of a viable unborn child.
  • Offence code 14 is procuring illegal abortion.

In Response:

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 follows.

Offence

2013/14

2015/16

2016/17

2020/21

Total

Intentional destruction of a viable unborn child

1

-

2

1

4

Pregnant woman

1

-

1

-

2

Third party

-

-

1

1

2

Procuring illegal abortion

-

2

1

-

3

Third party

-

2

1

-

3

Total

1

2

3

1

7

 

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

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