Compensation - 239/19

Date Responded 08 April 2019

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 much money has been paid out in compensation by your force for wrongful arrests from January 1, 2015 to February 15, 2019 - Can I get those figures broken down by calendar year.
  2. What were the offences the arrested people were suspected of committing?
  3. How many people were paid compensation by your force in each of those years?
  4. What was the total budget for your force in each of those years?

In Response:

1.

2015 -  £2,750.00

2016 -  £1,500.00

2017 -  £3,800.00

2018 -  £2,000.00

1.1.19 – 15.2.19 - £0.00

2.

In respect of the 6 Public Liability civil claims for wrongful arrest settled/finalised from 1st January 2015 to 15th February 2019 we can only provide the information in relation to 5 of these claims as one of our files has now been destroyed.

Therefore the offences in relation to the information we can provide, for which the arrested people were suspected of committing, are:-

2 Arrests - Warrant for Fail to Appear

1 Arrest - Breach of Domestic Violence Protection Order

1 Arrest – Suspicion of causing Grievous Bodily Harm

1 Arrest – Harassment

3

2015 – 2 Public Liability civil claims for wrongful arrest settled/finalised.

2016 - 1 Public Liability civil claim for wrongful arrest settled/finalised

2017 - 2 Public Liability civil claims for wrongful arrest settled/finalised

2018 - 1 Public Liability civil claim for wrongful arrest settled/finalised

There has been no Public Liability civil claim for wrongful arrest settled/finalised in the period 1.1.19 – 15.2.19

4.

As the information you have requested is accessible by other means I have not provided you with a copy of the information and will rely on Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  You should therefore consider this a refusal for your request.

I have provided an explanation to this exemption below.

Section 21 (1) - Information accessible by other means

Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant is exempt information.

Budget information is published and therefore freely available and can be found on the OPCC website by searching for ‘Budget’

In order to assist I have provided the relevant link below

http://www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk/transparency/finance/budget/

 

 

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.

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