S9 – 12 Sexual Offences Act (891A/20)
Request
- Please tell me the number of recorded offences fromonlys.9-12 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 recording from (and including) April 1st, 2019 until (and including) 30th June 2020.
- Please indicate which section of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 each recorded offence belongs to (e.g. 9, 10, 11 or 12).
- Please tell me which of each of these offences were cyber enabled and which were facilitated through a contact meeting.
- Please also specify which of these offences were conducted by a family member (intrafamilial child sexual abuse) and which of these were conducted by an individual unknown to the victim (extrafamilial child sexual abuse).
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).
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 attached). 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
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12). In relation to question 3, the information in relation to facilitated through a contact meeting would require a manual search of in excess of 500 records, which would exceed the FOI time limit.
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.