FOI Domestic Homicides (0744-2024/25)

Request
1 a) From 01/01/2019 to 19/11/24, how many domestic homicide offences, where a woman was killed by her current or former male partner have been recorded by your police force? Please provide the data based on victim – suspect relationship codes such as Husband, Ex-husband, Common law husband, Boyfriend, Ex-Boyfriend etc.  With flags DV, DX, DI for homicide codes.  

1 b) In each of these domestic homicide offences, how many of the victims had previously contacted the North Yorkshire police to report a crime where the perpetrator was recorded as as Husband, Ex-husband, Common law husband, Boyfriend, Ex-Boyfriend.

1 c) How many were charged with her murder?

1 d) How many were charged with her manslaughter?

1 e) How many were charged with a violent offence or coercive control in relation to that victim following her death? To respond to this question, please run domestic abuse flagged female victims of homicide and return accused PNC ID and then match that to Violent/Coercive control PPA, after the committed date of the homicide.

2) From 01/01/2019 to 19/11/24, how many police officers in your force have been arrested following an allegation of common assault, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault, rape where the suspect was recorded as Husband, Ex-husband, Common law husband, Boyfriend, Ex-Boyfriend. 

3) From 01/01/2019 to 19/11/24, how many police officers in your force have been arrested following an allegation of domestic violence, and how many were subsequently charged?

Extent of Searches to Locate Information
Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision
I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.

In order to retrieve the requested information to answer Question 2 it would be necessary to undertake a manual review of hundreds of reports over a 5 year timeframe, to determine the nature of relationship between individuals, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.