Spiking Incidents (266A/22)
Request
How many incidents of spiking were recorded by your force in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and how many of these reports resulted in an arrest.
Response
Unfortunately, our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of this information within the appropriate (cost) limit of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
However, 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 following table). 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.
TABLE – ‘Spiking’ Incidents 01 January 2019 to *24 February 2022
| Year | Total |
| 2019 | 77 |
| 2020 | 82 |
| 2021 | 505 |
| 2022* | 72 |
| Grand Total | 736 |
REASON FOR DECISION
Although it has been possible to provide the number of reported ‘spiking’ incidents during the requested period (see table above), it is not possible to determine the number of resultant arrests without manually examining each case. Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that 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.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
Attachments
No attachments