Police Firearms - 263/20

Date Responded 02 March 2020

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. For each of the last five years up to the date of this request, the number of incidents where there has been a negligent discharge of a police-issue firearm in your force. To be clear, by "negligent discharge" I mean any incident where a police-issue firearm has been fired when it should not have been or when it was not intended to do so.
  2. Where possible, please provide brief details of the circumstances of that discharge - ie, description of the weapon, the location, whether during training or operational circumstances, whether it resulted in any injury.
  3. For each of the last five years, the number of incidents where there has been a failure by a member of your force to maintain proper possession of a police-issue firearm. To be clear, by "failure to maintain proper possession" I mean any incident where a police-issue firearm has been left unattended by an officer or otherwise not been in the full possession of an officer when it should have been.
  4. Where possible, please provide brief details of the circumstances of each incident of this nature - ie description of the weapon, location, whether during training or operational circumstances.
  5. For questions 1 and 3, please indicate whether any incidents resulted in disciplinary action and the result of that disciplinary action.

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Operations 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.

  1. 2015 = 0

2016 = 1

2017 = 0

2018 = 0

2019 = 1

2, 

Intermediate Rifle.  Rear Yard of police armoury.  Operational.  No injury.

Carbine.  Rear of ARV in street.  Operational.  No injury.

3. Nil for period.

4. N/A.

5. Both - Management Action and retraining.

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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