Voyeurism (1553A/23)
Request
I would like to know the following:
- How many reports of voyeurism were made in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (with an end date of 31/09/2023)?
- How many of those reports involved a victim / alleged victim aged 18-24? (please can you be specific for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (up until 31/09).
- How many of those reports involved a victim / alleged victim under the age of 18? (please can you be specific for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (up until 31/09).
- In relation to question 1, how many of those reports of voyeurism involved a camera in glasses/ spectacles?
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 order to answer question 4, we would need to manually review all 367 records, at 5 minutes per record this would take over 30 hours and 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