Stalking (171A/24)
Request
1. How many offences of stalking were recorded by your police force between:
1st April 2021 – 31st March 2022?
1st April 2022 – 31st March 2023?
2. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is either s2 harassment or s4 harassment (putting people in fear of violence)?
3. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is malicious communications?
4. Of the offences recorded as section 4a stalking offences between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is section 2a stalking?
5. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23, how many outcome 15B outcomes are recorded?
6. How many dedicated specialist stalking officers (i.e. where the officer’s time is wholly or solely reserved for the response, investigation, or management of stalking crimes) does you force currently have?
7. How many stalking Single Point of Contacts (SPOC) does your force have?
8. How many stalking SPO SPOCs does your force have?
9. In how many cases did your police force apply for one or more interim SPO between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23?
10. In how many cases did your police force apply for one or more full SPO between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23?
11. How many of those SPOs that your police force applied for between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23 ended up not being authorised by the superintendent and/or or not authorised by the police force legal services?
12. How many of those SPOs that your police force applied for between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23 ended up being refused at court?
13. How many of the SPOs you applied for between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23 had positive requirements?
14. How many breaches of SPO crimes were recorded between 01/04/22 – 31/03/23? How many resulted in a charge?
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).
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 questions 6 to 13 of your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached 171A_24_attachment.pdf). 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
Regarding questions 2, 3 & 4 – It is not possible to determine this information without separately and manually reviewing all stalking offences with an outcome OC01a (Charged/Summons – alternate offence. Offender has been charged under the alternate offence rule). However, this is not a straightforward search and would require accessing and cross-referencing records across several systems/locations. Due to the number of stalking offences with this outcome (124), such a search would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that 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.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here: