FOI 1320-2025/26- Vape spiking

Request:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 please provide (to the best of your ability) the following aggregated numbers (for your police force area).

For the period of 1 year (including start and end date) 1 January 2025 - 31 December 2025:

Q1.  The total number of reported alleged (sexual offences / sexual assaults / rapes) that mention a (vape / e-cig / electronic cigarette / e-cigarette) was used as a method of (drugging / administering a drug / spiking / incapacitating) the alleged victim.

If your force does not record any of the terms specified above as a unique field but allows free-text searches of incident reports, please indicate the search words used. If any items cannot be provided, please provide as much aggregated information as you can and indicate which items are refused/absent and the reasons.

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 have today decided to disclose the following information to you.

Q1. A search has been carried out of all sexual offences between 01 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 that mention ‘vape’, ‘e-cig’, ‘electronic cigarette’, ‘e-cigarette’ within the MO remarks. These have then been manually reviewed to determine whether an electronic cigarette was used as a method to spike/incapacitate, to which there were zero.

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.