Sexual Assaults (258A/23)
Request
I am writing to request the following information from your organisation for the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022:
- The number of sexual assaults, at the below list of addresses, reported to your police force:
- Please specify how many sexual assaults involved patients and how many involved staff
- Please also specify outcome, without any identifiers
- The number of rapes, at the below list of addresses, reported to your police force:
- Please specify how many rapes involved patients and how many involved staff
- Please also specify outcome, without any identifiers
Please provide the information in an email.
WEST MIDLANDS POLICE:
- The Oleaster, 6 Mindelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2SY
- 190 Reservoir Road, Erdington, Birmingham, B23 6DW
- Mary Seacole House, Lodge Road, Winson Green, Birmingham, B18 5SD
- Meadowcroft Unit PICU, Lodge Road, Winson Green, Birmingham, B18 5SD
- Zinnia Centre, 100 Showell Green Lane, Sparkhill, Birmingham, B11 4HL
- Newbridge House, 130 Hobmoor Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, B10 9JH
- David Bromley House, 2-4 Woodside Crescent, Downing Close, Knowle, Solihull, B93 0QA
- Dan Mooney House, 1 Woodside Crescent, Downing Close, Knowle, Solihull, B93 0QA
- Ardenleigh Hospital, Kingsbury Rd, Birmingham B24 9SA
- Juniper Centre, Moseley Hall Hospital, Alcester Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8JL
- Ashcroft, The Moorings, Hockley, Birmingham, B18 5SD
- Endeavor Court, 210 Reservoir Road, Erdington, Birmingham, B23 6DJ
- Dorothy Pattison Hospital, Alumwell Cl, Walsall WS2 9XH
- Hallam Street Hallam Street West Bromwich B71 4NH
- Heath Road Hospital, Heath Ln, West Bromwich B71 2BG
- Penn Hospital Penn Road Penn Wolverhampton WV4 5HN
- Bloxwich Hospital, Reeves Street, Walsall, WS3 2JJ
- Bushey Fields Hospital, Bushey Fields Road, Russell’s Hall, Dudley, DY1 2LZ
- Edward Street Hospital, Edward Street, West Bromwich, B70 8NL
- Caludon Centre, Clifford Bridge Rd, Coventry CV2 2TE
- Brooklands, Coleshill Road, Marston Green, B37 7HL
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of the requested information within the appropriate (cost) limit under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. This is because we do not have any recording categories, flags or markers on our crime recording database to denote the involvement of staff or patients within the crimes. This means that to determine whether this detail has been recorded / specified, we would need to manually review each individual crime record in relation to the specified addresses. We have identified 198 crimes relevant to your request, however, due to the multiple tabs, entries, pages and notes that would need to be reviewed on our crime recording database, I estimate it would take between 5 – 10 minutes to conduct this search for each crime. I have used 7 minutes as an average, therefore, 7 minutes to review each of the 198 crimes would equate to approximately 23 hours. This is in addition to the time that has already been spent retrieving the number of crimes recorded at the locations you specified. To conduct these manual searches for the additional detail would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that 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, under Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide data for the number of crimes recorded at the locations specified and the outcomes of these crimes, as this was retrieved during our initial research retrieved before it was realised cost was a factor. Please find this information attached (258A_Attachment).
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:
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.