Cyberstalking (16966/19)
Request
1: The total number of cyberstalking incidents recorded per calendar year from 2014 ¿ 2019. Please provide an annual breakdown. For 2019, where possible please provide information until the end of September.
2: Where possible, provide detail on each recorded incident (e.g harassment, stalking, stalking involving serious alarm/distress). Please provide annual breakdown as per Q1
3: The number of cyberstalking incidents in which the perpetrator(s) is identified, per calendar year from 2014 ¿ 2019. Please provide annual breakdown as per Q1
4: The number of individuals that have reported cyberstalking offences to your police force, per calendar year from 2014 ¿ 2019. Please provide annual breakdown as per Q1
5: Please provide details relating to the outcome of the perpetrator referenced in Q3 (e.g charge, caution, fixed penalty, resolution). This information should be broken down per calendar year from 2014-Sept 2019 as per Q1.
6: The number of cyberstalking cases that have reached court per calendar year from 2014 ¿ 2019. Please provide annual breakdown as per Q1
7: The number of cyberstalking cases that resulted in a guilty verdict per calendar year from 2014 ¿ 2019. Please provide annual breakdown as per Q1
Response
Please find attached our response, and note that as requested, we have conducted a search of our crimes database for offences relating to stalking/harassment that have an ‘internet involved marker’. However, please be advised that we are unable to provide an answer to questions 6 and 7 as conviction data/court information is not routinely fed back into our systems.
These data should be interpreted with caution; the figures provided 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.