Theft of Defibrillators (3107/20)
Request
I would like to make a request please under the Freedom of Information Act regarding theft of defibrillators (AEDs) in your area of jurisdiction over three given time periods.
The information I would like to request please is:
1a) How many reports did you receive of defibrillators being stolen in the period from 1st February 2019 – 31st January 2020?
1b) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 1a, please give the location and date of the alleged theft.
1c) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 1a, please state whether or not the alleged theft was investigated.
1d) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 1a, please state whether or not anyone was convicted.
2a) How many reports did you receive of defibrillators being stolen in the period from 1st February 2018 – 31st January 2019?
2b) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 2a, please give the location and date of the alleged theft.
2c) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 2a, please state whether or not the alleged theft was investigated.
2d) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 2a, please state whether or not anyone was convicted.
3a) How many reports did you receive of defibrillators being stolen in the period from 1st February 2014 – 31st January 2015?
3b) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 3a, please give the location and date of the alleged theft.
3c) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 3a, please state whether or not the alleged theft was investigated.
3d) For each of the reported thefts referred to in 3a, please state whether or not they led to any criminal convictions.
Response
Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. We do not have a recording category on our systems to denote whether the property stolen was a defibrillator. In order to accurately identify all records of stolen defibrillators we would need to conduct a manual search of all theft offences for the requested time period.
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.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
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 for relevant offences that contain the word ‘defibrillator’ in the MO Notes. Please see attached document (3107_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.