Suspects Released Under Investigation - 155/20

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. How many people did your force release on pre-charge police bail between 3rd April 2016 and 2nd April 2017? Please breakdown the numbers for your force by the nature of the offences for which the individual was under investigation eg rape, burglary
2. How many people did your force release on pre-charge police bail between 3rd April 2017 and 2nd April 2018? Please breakdown the numbers for your force by the nature of the offences for which the individual was under investigation eg rape, burglary
3. How many people did your force ‘release under investigation’ by the police between 3rd April 2017 and 2nd April 2018? Please breakdown the numbers for your force by the nature of the offences for which the individual was under investigation eg rape, burglary
4. How many people did your force ‘release under investigation' by the police between 3rd April 2018 and 2nd April 2019? Please breakdown the numbers for your force by the nature of the offences for which the individual was under investigation eg rape, burglary
5. Between April 3 2016 and April 2 2018, what was the average length of time someone spent on pre-charge police bail for your force in days?
6. Between April 3 2017 and April 2 2019, what was the average length of time someone was ‘released under investigation’ for your force in days?
7. Please state the longest period in days someone spent having been ‘released under investigation’ before being charged or being released with no further action being taken, between 3rd April 2017 and 2nd April 2019.
8. How many people are currently ‘released under investigation’ by your force?
9. Of the total number of people ‘released under investigation’ between 3rd April 2017 and 2nd April 2019, how many were released with no further action being taken and how many were charged? Please breakdown the numbers for your force by the nature of the offences for which the individual was charged or for which the individual was originally investigated, before being released with no further action being taken.

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, in part, by Northumbria Police.

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

It should be noted that we are not able to extract a history of an offender’s disposal status, for example if an offender was released under investigation then charged, the individual will now show as charged.  We do, however, have monthly snapshots recorded - this will show the number of individuals who had a status of released under investigation each month.  We do not hold this information broken down by offence type.

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 noted please see the attached which should satisfy your request.