Spiking (87A/23)
Request
From 2017-2022 as reported to your force:
- The number of offences that were reported to the police as alleged drink spiking (including needling)
- The number of alleged drink spiking offences that were investigated by the police
- The number of offences that were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service
- The number of offences that were prosecuted
- What measures or practices have been changed since October 2021 to facilitate reporting and to provide support?
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of this information within the appropriate (cost) limit of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
However, 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, that we have been able to extract from our systems within the time/cost limitations of the Act (see attached 87A_23_attachment.pdf).
With regard to the attached data, it is important to note that although a dip sample of cases all related to drink/needle spiking reports, data were retrieved using a mix of offence types and keyword searches and as a result may not be as accurate as a search using specific offence titles were they available. It is also possible that some offences of this nature will not have been captured by this search, as they will not have contained any of the specified keywords in the summary notes.
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.