FOI Public Order Arrests (0515-2022/23)

Request

Q1. How many people has your force arrested under the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Act 2022 between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022? Please include whether or not people were charged, broken down by age, race and gender.
Q2. How many people has your force arrested under the Public Order Act 1986 between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022? Please include whether or not people were charged, broken down by age, race and gender.
Q3. How many people has your force arrested under the Public Order Act 1936 between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022? Please include whether or not people were charged, broken down by age, race and gender.
Q4. How many Breach of the Peace arrests did your force make between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022? Please include whether or not people were charged, broken down by age, race and gender.
Q5. Has your force received any complaints between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022? If so, please share how many and the details for each complaint e.g. excessive use of force.
Q6. If it does not push this request over the cost limit, please share how many anti-monarchy protestors your force arrested between 9 September 2023 and 19 September 2022. 

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 located information to you.

Q1. No arrests

Q2. Please see below for the number of people arrested under the Public Order Act 1936 between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022, broken down by age, race and gender.

Age	Under 16	17-25	26-35	36-45	Over 45	Total
Number	3	8	5	3	5	24

 

Race	Number
White - European	24

 

Male	Female
15	9

Q3. No arrests

Q4. Please see below for the number of people arrested for Breach of the Peace between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022, broken down by race. I am exempting any further breakdown of this data pursuant Section 40(2) of the Act. Please see the Exemption Explanation below.

Race	Number
White - European	6

Q5. North Yorkshire Police have received 13 complaints regarding officer conduct between 9 September 2022 and 19 September 2022. I am exempting breaking this down pursuant Section 40(2) Personal information and Section 31(g) Law Enforcement. Please see the Exemption Explanation below               

Q6. No arrests

Exemption Explanation

Section 40 – Personal Information

I am exempting providing you with the gender and race breakdown for Q4, pursuant to Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (the Act).  This is to ensure anonymity for those involved in each case. I have, however, provided other details relating to investigations to assist in your request, but maintain the elimination of any identification.

Where an individual can be identified by such data, releasing it would clearly breach the first data protection principle of being ‘fair’ to the data subject.

Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

Section 40(2) is an absolute class based exemption, which does not require a public interest test, but requires the balancing of the legitimate interests of the public against the interests of the individual under the first Data Protection Principle; in that processing of personal data must be lawful and fair (DPA 2018 35(1), EUGDPR Article 5(1)).

This exemption applies because the right given under the FOI Act to request official information held by public authorities does not apply to the personal data of third parties where disclosure of that information would not be fair to the individual, and where there is no legitimate public interest in disclosure.

In all the circumstances of the case it has been determined that the duty to the individual under the Data Protection Act 2018 & EU General Data Protection Regulations, and the public interest in maintaining the exemption from disclosure of personal information held by the force in such instances, outweighs the public interest in disclosure.  In this instance, personal information can only be disclosed to the individual concerned. 

Releasing personal details to a person other than the data subject would not only breach the data subject’s Data Protection rights it may also breach the obligations placed on an authority under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a refusal notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to your request.

Section 31 – Law Enforcement

Section 31 is a prejudice-based qualified exemption and there is a requirement to articulate the harm as well as carrying out a public interest test.

Evidence of Harm

As you may be aware, disclosure under FOIA is a release to the public at large. Whilst not questioning the motives of the applicant, releasing any information held regarding the number of complaints received may predudice any ongoing investigations. This would be to the detriment of providing an efficient and fair policing service and a failure in providing a duty of care to all members of the public.

Furthermore, the Police are there to support the public and deliver effective law enforcement. Releasing the details of the complaints made before a fair investigation has been completed may negatively impact the forces ability to conduct professional and proper policing.

Information that undermines the operational integrity of the police will adversely affect public safety and have a negative impact on both national security and law enforcement.

Factors favouring disclosure under Section 31

Releasing information held relating to complaints received would enable the public to have a better understanding of the effectiveness of the police.

It would show how public funds are being spent in relation to protecting the public.

Information would ensure transparency and accountability.

Factors against disclosure under Section 31

Any information released prematurely may undermine any ongoing investigation into the alleged improper conduct by our police officers. This would hinder our ability to conduct a thorough and fair investigation and may pedjudice any outcome.

The Police Service would not wish to reveal resource information that would undermine the law enforcement operations and would impact on police resources, as more crime would be committed because criminals/terrorists would know which forces had less/more capability. This in turn would place the public at a greater risk and a fear of crime would be realised, especially for more vulnerable areas.

Balance test

The security of the public and the country is of paramount importance and the Police service will not divulge the resources, if to do so would place the safety of individuals at risk, due to providing freely available (single point) information under such requests and which in turn would undermine National Security or compromise law enforcement.

Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing resources and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately prepared and effectively engaging with the threat posed by various groups or individuals, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police resources and operations in the highly sensitive areas such as extremism, crime prevention, public disorder and terrorism prevention.

As much as there is public interest in knowing that policing activity is appropriate and balanced this will only be overridden in exceptional circumstances. It is our opinion that for these issues the balancing test for exempting your request for planning information is not made out.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to part of your request.

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.