FOI 0515-2024/25- Police breaking into the wrong address

Request:

Q1. How many times in the last 5 calendar years has your Police Force broken into the wrong home address by mistake searching for evidence?

Q2. How many times did your Police Force:

a) Use breaking in as a first resort

b) Consider and use less intrusive methods of pursuing evidence?

Q3. What is the highest, lowest and average compensation or restitution paid?

Response: 

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.

Information relating to North Yorkshire Police breaking into the wrong home address by mistake searching for evidence is not recorded in a way which can be easily obtained. The individual circumstances are held within the file and to determine which records, if any are relevant to your request would require a manual review of all files and claims over the timeframe requested, 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, we may be able to provide some information for part 3 of your request if you resubmit and omit part 1 and 2.  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.