Osman Warnings ( 1286A/22)
Request
Please may I be given annual figures for the number of Threats to Life Warning Notices and Threats to Life Disruption Notices – commonly referred to as ‘Osman warnings’ – that the force has issued.
Please include annual figures from 2010 to 2021, inclusive. Please also give a figure for 2022 up to and including the time of this request.
Response
We can confirm that some relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, we are withholding that information since it is exempt by virtue of the following exemptions
Section 38 (1) Health and safety
Section 31 (1) Law enforcement
Section 40 (2) Personal Information
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
In line with the above, I am required to complete a Prejudice Test/Public Interest Test (PIT) on disclosure. Please find this PIT attached
Section 40(2) is an absolute and class-based exemption if to release the information exists would breach the third party’s data protection rights. In this case to release this personal information would not constitute fair processing of the data. As this exemption is class based I am not required to identify the harm in disclosure and in this instance, I believe that the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release
The above exemptions are in relation to the partial year 2022 data.
For the previous years please see the table below.
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).
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). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fee’s regulations for the remainder of the request.
Number of threats to life incidents recorded by year:
| Date | Count |
| 2022 to 29/09/22 | exempt |
| 2021 | 110 |
| 2020 | 171 |
| 2019 | 251 |
| 2018 | 309 |
| 2017 | 486 |
| 2016 | 546 |
| 2015 | – |
| 2014 | – |
| 2013 | – |
| 2012 | – |
| 2011 | – |
| 2010 | – |
We do not hold records of total numbers of Threats to Life’s (TTL) prior to 2016.
Some TTL notices are documented within the crime investigation log, and this would require an individual search of crimes.
To understand the amount of notices issued we would need to access each of the TTL records and read the TTL document to see if any (and how many) notices were issued, most of these documents are quite long so I would give a conservative reckoning of 10 minutes to locate the TTL document, read it, find if notices issued and how many.
Therefore, it would take us approximately 321 hours to fulfil this request. Even that would not give an accurate record of all notices issued as I have said earlier sometimes they are issued in relation to crimes so that would be held in the crimes records which would be even harder and longer to locate.