FOI Wasting Police Time RASSO Offences (214-2024/25)

Request

I write to request information on incident logs and crime reports where the complainant reported sexual assault, rape or other RASSO offences and was, at a later date, arrested, interviewed as a suspect voluntarily or charged.
 
I am looking for all data in the last 5 years, between June 2019 - June 2024.

I would like the information to be broken down into the following:
 
Q1. The number of arrests for wasting police time of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.
Q2. The number of voluntary suspect interviews for wasting police time of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.
Q3. The number of charges for wasting police time of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.
Q4. The number of arrests for PCJ of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.
Q5. The number of voluntary suspect interviews for PCJ of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.
Q6. The number of charges for PCJ of individuals who were original complainants of a RASSO offence.

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.

Whether a person arrested for wasting police time or perverting the course of justice has previously a complainant in a RASSO offence is not recorded in such a way that can be retrieved without an extensive manual review. In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to search our crime recording system for all RASSO offences, collate the victim data and then cross reference that data with all arrests for wasting police time and perverting the course of justice. This would involve thousands of files, 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.