FOI Protest Action (286-2024/25)

Request

Q1. I'm writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) to ask that you please disclose to me the operation names of any large scale protest action that you have been called out to as a force over the last two calendar years (2023 and 2024 to present).

Q2. I’d like the operation name, date, the name of the group involved (this could span anything from white nationalists to environmentalists - XR, BLM, anti-ULEZ, National Action, EDL, NBU, Covid conspiracy protests, Insulate Britain, Women's Rights marches, anti-military Marches like the anti-Elbit Systems action recently, Palestine action or other pro-Palestine marches, etc).

Q3. I’d also like to know how many people, and for what reason and from what groups, have been arrested under section 7 of the public order act, and those arrested under section 12 of the act as well.

Two areas of focus specifically however - in these instances spanning larger and smaller scale protests caught up in public order offences - would include arrests of environmental protestors specifically from the following: XR, JSO (Just Stop Oil), Greenpeace, Ocean Rebellion, Fossil Free Parliament/Fossil Free London/Fossil Free Politics, Insulate Britain, Friends of the Earth or other related groups that fall into this category.

And on the far right: the EDL (or newer associated groups), the New British Union of Fascists, Patriotic Alternative, Pie and Mash Squad, The Yorkshire (or East Yorkshire) Patriots, The National Support Detachment, the National Rebirth Party, National Action (now proscribed), Britain First, the English Democrats, UKIP, the National Front, the BNP, Homeland, or any other groups that fall into this category.

I’d like this information to include figures of arrests, and appreciate that in some instances there will be multiple arrests over a year for the same activists. This doesn’t matter for the purposes of this request, as it’s numbers of arrests specifically that I am seeking.

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.

Due to the nature of arrests made at protests, the reason for the arrests can vary e.g. criminal damage, assault etc. In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all crimes that resulted in an arrest between 01 January 2023 and 31 December 2024, to ascertain if they occurred at a protest. This would involve thousands of reports, 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 you with information for Q1 & Q2 if you resubmit your request and omit Q3. 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.