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) The total number of sexual assaults and rapes reported during the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Northumbria (ie the entire area covered by your force).
2) The categories recorded according to procedure when police record an assault or rape. (i.e. place, time, specifics about the victim) If there is no definite categorical way of doing this, the procedure for police officers to record information about sexual assaults will do as well.
3) The number of sexual assaults and rapes reported by individuals with an intellectual disability during the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Northumbria (ie the entire area covered by your force).
4) The number of sexual assaults and rapes reported by individuals with an intellectual disability that were solved during the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Northumbria (ie the entire area covered by your force).
5) The number of sexual assaults and rapes reported by individuals with an intellectual disability in council-sponsored care homes during the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Northumbria (ie the entire area covered by your force).
Clarity was sought by what you meant as ‘intellectual disability’ and you said ‘ I am referring to victims with a learning disability’
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 in part by Northumbria Police however cannot be disclosed for the following reasons.
The information requested, particularly at points 3, 4 and 5, is not held in a format that allows its extraction within the permitted 18 hour threshold
There is no identifier that would distinguish a report made regarding victims with learning disabilities. All sexual assault and rape offences for the 5 year period would require a manual review to establish is any mention had been made of the victims learning difficulties. (This judgement may be subjective and therefore not an accurate assessment. It could therefore not be taken as being accurate information).
With thousands of such reports per year this is not achievable. Additionally with regards to point 5, we have no way of recording or identifying premises as ‘council-sponsored care homes’. Again a manual review would be required which in its own right would again far exceed the permitted 18 hours.
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act for your request.
Responses to points 1 and 2 can be found be simple research
Statistics for each force are published under “Police recorded crime open data Police Force Area Tables” on the below link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Force policy has been published and can be found on the Northumbria Police Disclosure Log via the website FOI 415/18 refers
