Firearm Seized (1254A/21)
Request
Details of firearms that were seized by police in the West Midlands, from February to July in 2020 and 2021 [so a six month comparison for both years].
Please provide the information in this form:
- List all the firearms that were seized by West Midlands Police between February and July 2020 and February and July 2021.
- Please break down the information per month.
- Please list the locations where each firearm was found, such as street name and town/city, and also what type of firearm was recovered, such as eg shotgun or crossbow
Response
We can confirm that relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, while the majority of the information is attached to this email, I am not required to release all of the information requested in relation to street names.
REASONS FOR DECISION
The withheld information is exempt by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 30(1)(a) – Investigations and proceedings
Section 40(2) – Personal information
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
In line with Section 30 above, I am required to complete a Prejudice Test/Public Interest Test (PIT) on disclosure. Please find this PIT attached (1254A_PIT).
Section 40(2) is an absolute and class based exemption if to release the information exists would breach the third party’s data protection rights. In this case to release this personal information would not constitute fair processing of the data. As this exemption is class based I am not required to identify the harm in disclosure and in this instance I believe that the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release.
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.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.