Forced Marriage (3111/20)
Request
I would like the information specified below for each of the follow years: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, up to 30/09/2019), broken down into annual datasets.
- a) The total of forced marriage offences reported to the force. If can possibly be provided, I would like indication of the date of each report made to the force alleging such an offence, because I wonder if most of the reports are made in the summer holiday period.
- b) The age of the youngest person reported as being a victim
- c) The number of persons charged with a forced marriage offence/offences as a result of investigation by the force
- d) The number of persons convicted of a forced marriage offence/offences as a result of investigation by the force
- e) The number of forced marriage protection orders issued (if this data is something that you have)
By forced marriage offence, I mean any offence under section 121 of the Anti Social Behaviour and Policing Act 2014. I am assuming that it would breach the cost limit for the provision of free information to ask how many of the offences in A) led to the charge of conviction, because getting that data would involve opening individual case files, and therefore as regards C and D, I have asked for annual totals. But please let me know if I am wrong about that.
Response
Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. In relation question D and E
Therefore the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request
However, In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide information in relation to A, B and C.
Please note any further breakdown or the provision of data for a partial year is exempt by virtue of Section 40(2) Personal information.
Section 40 (2) allows for personal data to be withheld where release would breach the third party’s data protection rights. It would be unfair to release this information where any person could be identified from the data and in this case the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
*It is important to note that the information being disclosed is unlikely to be an accurate account as other agencies are also involved in dealing with this type of offence.
This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here: