Domestic Violence Victims aged over 65 (1301A/21)
Request
In relation to the years, April 2017-March 2018, April 2018- March 2019, and April 2019- March 2020, I require the following information,
The number of cases recorded by West-Midlands Police that were flagged as domestic abuse and involve a victim/victims aged over 65 wherein the crime outcome type is one of the following,
Outcome 10: “Not in public interest (Police): Formal action against the offender is not in the public interest (Police decision).”
Outcome 14 – “Evidential difficulties: suspect not identified; victim does not support further action: Evidential difficulties victim based – named suspect not identified. The crime is confirmed but the victim declines or is unable to support further police action to identify the offender.” and/or,
Outcome 16: “Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim does not support further action: Evidential difficulties victim based – named suspect identified. The victim does not support (or has withdrawn support from) police action.”
A breakdown of the relationship between victims to offender/principal suspect in these cases.
A breakdown of the gender of the victims identified above.
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).
The relationship between offender and victim is not always recorded (it is not a mandatory field), and to release the information where it has been recorded would give false data. The only way to retrieve accurate information on the relationships would be to individually assess each record, which would exceed cost for the purpose of the FOI Act.
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 enclosed document). 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.
| Outcome Description (Outcome Codes: 10, 14, and 16 only) | Female | Male | Unknown | Total |
| 2017-2018 | 232 | 148 | 1 | 381 |
| OC10: Formal action against the offender not in public interest (Police) | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| OC14: Evidential Difficulties Victim Based – No Named suspect: Crime confirmed but victim declined / unable to support further investigation to identify offender. | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| OC16: Named Suspect identified: evidential difficulties prevent further action; victim does not support (or has withdrawn support from) police action | 230 | 143 | 1 | 374 |
| 2018-2019 | 397 | 237 | 2 | 636 |
| OC10: Formal action against the offender not in public interest (Police) | 5 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
| OC14: Evidential Difficulties Victim Based – No Named suspect: Crime confirmed but victim declined / unable to support further investigation to identify offender. | 6 | 3 | 0 | 9 |
| OC16: Named Suspect identified: evidential difficulties prevent further action; victim does not support (or has withdrawn support from) police action | 386 | 232 | 2 | 620 |
| 2019-2020 | 566 | 384 | 0 | 950 |
| OC10: Formal action against the offender not in public interest (Police) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| OC14: Evidential Difficulties Victim Based – No Named suspect: Crime confirmed but victim declined / unable to support further investigation to identify offender. | 7 | 6 | 0 | 13 |
| OC16: Named Suspect identified: evidential difficulties prevent further action; victim does not support (or has withdrawn support from) police action | 558 | 377 | 0 | 935 |
| Total | 1195 | 769 | 3 | 1967 |
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.
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.
As recommended as good practice by the Information Commissioner’s Office a version of this response may be published on the West Midlands Police website.
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