Stalking Offences - 20/01/20 to 31/08/21 - 1190/21

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:

Please can you answer the below questions for the following time period: 20/01/20 to 31/08/21.

 

1. How many reports of stalking did your police force record over the requested period?
2. How many individuals were charged with the offence of stalking over the requested period?
3. How many individuals alleged to have stalked someone were released after questioning as your force decided 'no further action' should be taken in light of the (lack of) evidence?
4. While your force was investigating a stalking case, how many individuals reported to have been 'stalkers' were released under investigation? 4a) How many were released on bail?

 

After we sought clarity on a number of points you advised:

 

I can confirm that I mean: the number of people disposed with an NFA following an arrest/voluntary attendance interview in relation to a stalking offence and  the number of people disposed of as NFA due to evidential difficulties (please distinguish between the two in your response).

 

In your response, please could you use these HO sub-codes when interpreting 'stalking' (and distinguish between their totals in the response).

'008/29',        Breach of conditions of injunction against harassment
'008/30',        Putting people in fear of violence
'008/31',        Breach of a restraining order
'008/56',        Racially or religiously aggravated Stalking without violence
'008/58',        Racially or Religiously Aggravated Stalking with fear of violence
'008/65',        Stalking involving fear of violence
'008/66',        Stalking involving serious alarm/distress
'008/71',        Disclose private sexual photographs with intent to cause distress
'008/72',        Sending letters etc with intent to cause distress or anxiety
'125/68',        Harassment etc.  of a person in his home
'195/12',        Pursue a course of conduct in breach of S1 (1) which amounts to stalking
'195/94',        Harassment

In Response:

I am able to disclose the located information to you with the below noted.

• 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.
• "Overall" refers to overall crimes meeting the offence as above.
• "Crimes finalised as Charged" relates to the total number of crimes that have been finalised with a charge or summons.
• "Crimes finalised as Evidential Difficulties" relates to the total number of crimes that have been finalised as evidential difficulties.
• "Arrests / Voluntary Attenders resulting in NFA" relates to the total number of arrests or VAs, rather than crimes, wherein the outcome has been listed as NFA.
• You should note we are unable to provide an answer to Q4; we do not hold a history of individual disposal data, only the current disposal status.

Offence	Overall	Crimes finalised as Charged	Crimes finalised as Evidential Difficulties	Arrests / Voluntary Attenders resulting in NFA
Breach of a Restraining Order	1179	646	365	197
Breach of the conditions of an injunction against harassment	23	9	5	4
Disclose private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress	263	8	91	9
Harassment etc of a person in his home	23	1	5	1
Offence of harassment	5951	123	1792	374
Putting people in fear of violence	877	77	274	247
Racially or religiously aggravated harassment or stalking	1	0	0	0
Racially or religiously aggravated harassment or stalking without violence	5	2	2	2
Sending letters etc with intent to cause distress or anxiety	13050	290	3868	213
Stalking involving fear of violence	755	110	350	222
Stalking involving serious alarm/distress	357	55	153	34
Stalking without fear / alarm / distress	4644	230	2514	215