Dear Sir or Madam,

Could you please inform me of

[1a] the total number of homophobic hate crimes reported to you in
the last year

[b] the last three years

[2a] the total number of those hate crimes that were reported to
the Crown Prosecution Service in the last year

[b] the last three years.

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

Nick Henderson

Dear Mr Henderson

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

Further to your email, received 24 October 2008 concerning homophobic
crime, I am pleased to enclose the following information. Please note
that these data are the closest we hold to your request. They should not
be interpreted as representing anything other than as described in this
response. West Midlands Police cannot provide Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS) data without investigating each individual offence.

Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the
appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12 (1)). This means that the cost of providing
you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally
required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the
information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of
Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For West
Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by
the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.

However in order to assist the available information that is closest to
your request is shown on attachment 1815_ans_01.pdf.

Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing
numbers of crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the
likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of
incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be
influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on
incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of
future incidents in that area.

No attempt should be made to compare recorded and detected crime within
the same year. The date of recorded offences is the date on which they are
entered onto West Midlands Police systems. The date of detected offences
is the date on which an individual or individuals have been arrested for
the offence. Therefore offences may be detected in a later year than they
are recorded, meaning that direct comparison of recorded and detected
crime within the same period will give spurious results.

Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide
crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria are set
nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not
generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data.
It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your
questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other
response you may receive.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and
complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been
extracted from large disparate administrative data systems used by forces
for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your
request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale
recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data
collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into
account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of
data to your request but you should be aware that the collation of figures
for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into
account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you
to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as
to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent
the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your
case under West Midlands Police review procedure (attached). Please note
that such an appeal must be received within six months of the date of this
correspondence.

If you require any further information, then please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Unit

West Midlands Police in complying with their statutory duty under sections
1 and 11 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to release the enclosed
information will not breach the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
However, the rights of the copyright owner of the enclosed information
will continue to be protected by law. Applications for the copyright
owner*s written permission to reproduce any part of the attached
information should be addressed to The Force Solicitor, West Midlands
Police Headquarters, Lloyd House, Colmore Circus Queensway, Birmingham, B4
6NQ.

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