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:
1a) The total number of recorded offences for indecent images (still or moving) of children, for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017
1b) The total number of recorded offences for indecent images (still or moving) of children, for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018
2a) The breakdown of possession, distribution and any other linked indecent image (still or moving) of children offence for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017
2b) The breakdown of possession, distribution and any other linked indecent image (still or moving) of children offence for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018
2c) The breakdown of possession, distribution and any other linked indecent image (still or moving) of children offence for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018, with the breakdown of perpetrators age (by individual age where possible), gender and occupation.
If the request exceeds the Freedom of Information time limit, please focus on 2a and 2b
3a) The breakdown of taking indecent images (still or moving) of children for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017
3b) The breakdown of taking indecent images (still or moving) of children for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018
3c) The breakdown of taking indecent images (still or moving) of children for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018 with the breakdown of perpetrators age (by individual age where possible), gender and occupation.
If the request exceeds the Freedom of Information time limit, please focus on 3a and 3b
In Response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Information Commissioners Office (ICO) guidelines state that:
A public authority must confirm or deny whether it holds the information requested unless the cost of this alone would exceed the appropriate limit.
I can neither confirm nor deny that the information you require is held by Northumbria Police as to actually determine if it is held would exceed the permitted 18 hours therefore Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act for your request.
I have set out the reasons for this below.
There are two offences which are relevant to this request;
HO Code 086/02 Take, permit to be taken or to make distribute or publish indecent photographs or pseudo - photographs of children
HO Code 086/10 Possession of an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph
In order to establish which of these offences were "possession and/or distribution of an indecent image" and those which involved "taking indecent images ," each offence under HO Code 086/02 would need to be manually reviewed. Between 01/04/2016 and 31/03/2018 there were in excess of 1000 crimes under this HO Code and, as we have estimated approximately 4 minutes per record, to establish what information may be held would far exceed 18 hours.
