Dear Sir or Madam,

In
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cl...
Kent Police stated that a list of the items stolen by Kent Police
would be provided when a "new member of staff" had been inducted.

According to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/...
a politician has already been provided with this list. I have
looked on your web site and can find no trace of the list.

Please provide me, by return, with the same list that the
politician has been provided with.

Please explain why you provided a politician with this list, yet
could not be bothered to provide me with the same information.

Please note that "replies" which involve attachments in proprietary
file formats are not acceptable. A reply which is not in plain text
format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer.

If you are unwilling to provide a copy of the list of stolen items
in plain text form please discuss acceptable formats with me.

Yours faithfully,

David Hansen

Dear Mr Hansen,

Thank you for your most recent communication, in which you raised the
following point:

“Kent Police stated that a list of the items stolen by Kent Police would
be provided when a "new member of staff" had been inducted.”

This is inaccurate. My statement below (copied from your website)
actually stated the following:

I am hoping to resolve this within the next few weeks and publishing the
compendium of information will be an induction project for the new member
of staff joining this unit, as it will provide a useful introduction both
to the application of the Freedom of Information Act and to the Force.

Once again I must point out that no items were ‘stolen’ by Kent
Police. Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 provides the legal definition of
theft:

1(1) A person is guilty of theft if he -

dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention
of permanently depriving the other of it; and 'thief' and 'steal' shall be
construed accordingly.

There was no intention to permanently deprive, except where possession of
the item was itself an offence. Numerous items were seized under Section
1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 during Operation Oasis and
many of the items were returned at the time and this is detailed within
the list. Opportunities to retrieve seized properties were provided at a
later date. Therefore your suggestion that items were stolen is wholly
inaccurate and unfounded.

The list of seized items is intended to be included as part of the
compendium of information referred to above. This list has only recently
been completed and was provided to an applicant who had previously
requested the information as correctly specified.

1. A full inventory of items seized during the camp.

Our response to the applicant ran as follows:

Answer: As stated above and discussed during our recent telephone
conversation, Kent Police will shortly be publishing a compendium of
information relating to Operation Oasis on our website. This material is
currently being prepared and will be included with that information. We
are hoping to complete this work during the opening months of 2009. This
information is therefore exempt under section 22 of the Act (information
intended for future publication.)

This applicant reminded us of this commitment and requested that we
provide the list alone, ahead of publication. We recognised the public
interest in the list being made available and determined that it was now
possible to do so and so the information was provided to the applicant.

It remains our intention to publish the stated compendium of information
relating to Operation Oasis, including the list of items seized under
section 1 of PACE, as soon as resources allow. However, Kent Police are
under no obligation to return to previous applicants and provide
information that they have previously been refused under an exemption that
was appropriate to engage at that time.

Items released under the Freedom of Information Act are released into the
public domain. The list of seized property has now been provided to the
media by a member of parliament and this can be viewed on the BBC website
at the following link:

[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pd...

I have attempted to extract the information into plain text but have been
unable to due to the format in which the information is held. However,
this information is now reasonably available elsewhere (in pdf format) at
the link above, and so I am no longer obliged to provide it to you under
section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Information Reasonably
Available by Other Means).

Nigel Amos

Freedom of Information Advisor

Kent Police

>>> David Hansen <[FOI #8584 email]> 01/03/09 20:33
>>>
Dear Sir or Madam,

In

[2]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cl...
Kent Police stated that a list of the items stolen by Kent Police
would be provided when a "new member of staff" had been inducted.

According to

[3]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/...
a politician has already been provided with this list. I have
looked on your web site and can find no trace of the list.

Please provide me, by return, with the same list that the
politician has been provided with.

Please explain why you provided a politician with this list, yet
could not be bothered to provide me with the same information.

Please note that "replies" which involve attachments in proprietary
file formats are not acceptable. A reply which is not in plain text
format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer.

If you are unwilling to provide a copy of the list of stolen items
in plain text form please discuss acceptable formats with me.

Yours faithfully,

David Hansen

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References

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5. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/contact

Dear Freedom of Information Freedom of Information,

I note that Kent Police are so inefficient that they are now
referring people to the BBC in order to look at the list of items
stolen by Kent Police from the fine upstanding citizens who
attended the climate camp.

Yours sincerely,

David Hansen

Dear Sir or Madam,

Having skimmed through the list of stolen property I can see why
Kent Police have been so keen not to reveal the list of stolen
property to the public.

Yours sincerely,

David Hansen