Stalking - 397/18

Date Responded 11 May 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. Could you please let me know how many reports of stalking and harassment were made to Northumbria Police in the following years, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.

2. How many reports came from one victim reporting multiple cases of stalking and harassment?

3. How many reports, were one victim reporting one case of stalking and harassment multiple times?

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.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

All crimes created between 01/01/2013 and 31/12/2017 under the below offences were collated -

Harassment -

008/50 Racially or religiously aggravated offence of harassment

195/94 Offence of harassment

Stalking -

008/65 Stalking involving fear of violence

008/66 Stalking involving serious alarm/distress

195/12 Stalking without fear / alarm / distress

Q2 = where two or more crimes list the same victim but a different offender. (i.e. the victim has reported the stalking/harassment on more than one occasion by different perpetrators)

Q3 = where two or more crimes list the same victim and the same offender (i.e. the victim has reported the same person more than once and another crime has been created)

If no suspect has been identified or the suspect identified has been eliminated from the enquiry, it is not possible to conclude whether the case is different or the same and therefore these cases have been excluded from Q2 and Q3.

I provided a count of reports. For example, Q3 there have been 285 reports - this could be one person who has reported the same person 275 times or 57 people have reported the same person 5 times each.

Please note that one crime may also involve multiple occasions of reporting harassment and stalking.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would expect that you to take into consideration the factors highlighted above so as not to 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 see the below.

2013 – 435

2014 – 513

2015 – 941

2016 – 3270

2017 – 5119

2. = 6

3. = 285

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.