Dangerous Dogs (1482A/21)
Request
I’d like to request the following information for the years 2016-2020 with regards to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
Please provide the following information for the years 2016 to 2020 inclusive:
- The number of suspected Section 1 dogs seized by your Police Force under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (DDA)
- Of the dogs seized as prohibited types, how many deemed by the courts as being of each of the four different banned types.
- Of the dogs seized as prohibited types, how many deemed by the courts as being Pit Bull Terriers
- Of the dogs seized as prohibited types, how many deemed by the courts as being Dogo Argentino
- Of the dogs seized as prohibited types, how many deemed by the courts as being Japanese Tosa
- Of the dogs seized as prohibited types, how many deemed by the courts as being Fila Braziliero
- How many offences under Section 3 of the DDA did your Police Force pursue, and of these how many included a dog of a type proscribed under Section 1 of the DDA?
- For each dog involved in an Section 3 offence, what was their breed or type?
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
REASON FOR DECISION
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12). We would need to conduct a manual search of all relevant records in order to locate and retrieve this information, this search would exceed the FOI time limit.
The cost of compliance with the whole of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.