FOI Stalking (1090-2023/24)

Request

Q1. How many offences of stalking were recorded by your police force between: 1st April 2021 – 31st March 2022? And 1st April 2022 – 31st March 2023?
Q2. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is either s2 harassment or s4 harassment (putting people in fear of violence)?
Q3. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is malicious communications? 
Q4. Of the offences recorded as section 4a stalking offences between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23, how many outcome 1A outcomes are recorded where the alternative offence recorded is section 2a stalking?
Q5. Of the offences recorded as one of the 3 stalking offences between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23, how many outcome 15B outcomes are recorded?
Q6. How many dedicated specialist stalking officers (i.e. where the officer’s time is wholly or solely reserved for the response, investigation, or management of stalking crimes) does you force currently have?
Q7. How many stalking Single Point of Contacts (SPOC) does your force have?
Q8. How many stalking SPO SPOCs does your force have?
Q9. In how many cases did your police force apply for one or more interim SPO between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23?    
Q10. In how many cases did your police force apply for one or more full SPO between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23?    
Q11. How many of those SPOs that your police force applied for between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23 ended up not being authorised by the superintendent and/or or not authorised by the police force legal services?
Q12. How many of those SPOs that your police force applied for between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23 ended up being refused at court?

Q13. How many of the SPOs you applied for between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23 had positive requirements?
Q14. How many breaches of SPO crimes were recorded between 01/04/22 - 31/03/23? How many resulted in a charge?

Response

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

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, it would be necessary to manually review all stalking crimes to determine what alternative offence was recorded, 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.

You may find the information on the links below useful

FOI 0333-2023/24 - Stalking Protection Orders | North Yorkshire Police

FOI 0493-2023/24 - Stalking Protection Orders | North Yorkshire Police

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.