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Number of acid attacks in which substance was purchased online

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Dear Metropolitan Police Service (MPS),

Please can you disclose the number of 'acid attack' related incidents in which the perpetrator was discovered to have purchased the acid online for the period August 2016 to August 2017.

Yours faithfully,

James Laird

Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)

Dear Mr Laird

Freedom of Information Request Reference No: 2017080000414

I write in connection with your request for information which was received
by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) on 11/08/2017.  I note you seek
access to the following information:

"Please can you disclose the number of 'acid attack' related incidents in
which the perpetrator was discovered to have purchased the acid online for
the period August 2016 to August 2017."

Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (the Act).  You will receive a response within the
statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act.  

If you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please contact
us at [email address] or on the phone at 0207 161 3500, quoting the
reference number above. Should your enquiry relate to the logging or
allocations process we will be able to assist you directly and where your
enquiry relates to other matters (such as the status of the request) we
will be able to pass on a message and/or advise you of the relevant
contact details.

Yours sincerely

R. Loizou
Support Officer - Freedom of Information Triage Team
 
COMPLAINT RIGHTS

Are you unhappy with how your request has been handled or do you think the
decision is incorrect?

You have the right to require the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to
review their decision.

Prior to lodging a formal complaint you are welcome to discuss the
response with the case officer who dealt with your request.  

Complaint

If you are dissatisfied with the handling procedures or the decision of
the MPS made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) regarding
access to information you can lodge a complaint with the MPS to have the
decision reviewed.

Complaints should be made in writing, within forty (40) working days from
the date of the refusal notice, and addressed to:

FOI Complaint
Information Rights Unit
PO Box 57192
London
SW6 1SF
[email address]

In all possible circumstances the MPS will aim to respond to your
complaint within 20 working days.

The Information Commissioner

After lodging a complaint with the MPS if you are still dissatisfied with
the decision you may make application to the Information Commissioner for
a decision on whether the request for information has been dealt with in
accordance with the requirements of the Act.

For information on how to make application to the Information Commissioner
please visit their website at www.ico.org.uk.  Alternatively, write to or
phone:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Phone: 0303 123 1113

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NOTICE - This email and any attachments may be confidential, subject to
copyright and/or legal privilege and are intended solely for the use of
the intended recipient. If you have received this email in error, please
notify the sender and delete it from your system.  To avoid incurring
legal liabilities, you must not distribute or copy the information in this
email without the permission of the sender. MPS communication systems are
monitored to the extent permitted by law.  Consequently, any email and/or
attachments may be read by monitoring staff. Only specified personnel are
authorised to conclude any binding agreement on behalf of the MPS by
email. The MPS accepts no responsibility for unauthorised agreements
reached with other employees or agents.  The security of this email and
any attachments cannot be guaranteed. Email messages are routinely scanned
but malicious software infection and corruption of content can still occur
during transmission over the Internet. Any views or opinions expressed in
this communication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

 

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Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)

Dear Mr Laird,

Freedom of Information Request Reference No: 2017080000414

I write in response to your request for information that was received by
the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) on 11 August 2017. I apologise for
the delay in responding to your request and any inconvenience caused.  I
note that you seek access to the following information:

"Please can you disclose the number of 'acid attack' related incidents in
which the perpetrator was discovered to have purchased the acid online for
the period August 2016 to August 2017."

When a request for information is made under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (the Act), a public authority must inform you, when permitted,
whether the information requested is held. It must then communicate that
information to you. If a public authority decides that it cannot comply
with all or part of a request, it must cite the appropriate section or
exemption of the Act and provide you with an explanation.

DECISION
The MPS is unable to establish whether the requested information is held
within the cost/research threshold set out by the Freedom of Information
and Data Protection Act Fees Regulations 2004. In this regard, I estimate
that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate
limit. For agencies outside central Government, the cost threshold is set
at £450 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours
[at a rate of £25 per hour] determining whether the public authority holds
the information. This also includes locating, retrieving and extracting
the information requested. This email constitutes a formal Refusal Notice
for this request. A full explanation, including the relevant sections of
the Act and the Fees Regulations, is given in the section titled 'Legal
Annex' below.

Please also note that when one part of a request is refused because the
cost of completing that part of the request would exceed the appropriate
limit, this results in the refusal of the request in its entirety. This
approach is inline with the guidance of the Information Commissioner (the
Freedom of Information Act ombudsman).
DUTY TO ADVISE AND ASSIST
Under Section 16 of the Act, there is a duty to advise and assist
applicants in making requests for information. The MPS is currently
producing a dataset upon corrosive fluid offences. This dataset will set
out the number of corrosive fluid offences that have been recorded by the
MPS from 01 January 2002 and will provide further breakdowns in respect of
the suspects and victims of these offences. Once complete, I can send this
dataset to you. Should you wish to refine your request to the
aforementioned dataset, please email or contact me on telephone number
0207 161 6150.
COMPLAINT RIGHTS
This notice concludes your request for information. I would like to thank
you for your interest in the MPS.
Your attention is drawn to the attached sheet which details your right of
complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write
or contact Damion Baird on telephone number 0207 161 6510 quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely

Damion Baird

LEGAL ANNEX
EXPLANATION OF DECISION
Section 12 (2) Cost of Compliance would exceed Freedom of Information Act
Limit
The MPS is unable to respond to your request for information within the
research/cost limit of the Act:

The Crime Report Information System (CRIS) is used by the MPS to record
offences within the MPS district (the area policed by the MPS). The MPS do
not record upon the CRIS, in a searchable field, whether the corrosive
fluid used in an offence was purchased online. To determine whether the
corrosive fluid was purchased online, each CRIS report (a report created
to record a criminal offence) would have to read. Depending upon the
length of the CRIS report, it can take a single member of staff between 5
and 15 minutes to review a CRIS report. From 01 August 2016 to 31 August
2017, in excess of 700 corrosive fluid offences were recorded by the MPS.
To review the CRIS reports associated with 700 offences would take a
single member of staff a period of time which would clearly exceed the 18
hour research/cost limit of the Act.
Please note that the Information Commissioner's guidance states that
'Section 12 makes it clear that a public authority does not have to make a
precise calculation of the costs of complying with a request.  Only an
estimate is required ... what amounts to a reasonable estimate can only be
considered on a case by case basis.'  The Information Commissioner also
advises 'where a reasonable estimate has been made that the appropriate
limit would be exceeded, there is no requirement for a public authority to
undertake work up to the limit.'
EXEMPTIONS CLAIMED
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this email acts as
a Refusal Notice for the requested information.
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides:
"(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information,
is relying on a claim that section 12 or 14 applies must, within the time
for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that
fact."

Section 12(2) of the Act provides:
"(2)Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its
obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the
estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the
appropriate limit."

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004 provide:
"3 (1) This regulation has effect to prescribe the appropriate limit
referred to in section 9A(3) and (4) of the 1998 Act and the appropriate
limit referred to in section 12(1) and (2) of the 2000 Act.
(2) In the case of a public authority which is listed in Part I of
Schedule 1 to the 2000 Act, the appropriate limit is £600.
(3) In the case of any other public authority, the appropriate limit is
£450.
4 (3) In a case in which this regulation has effect, a public authority
may, for the purpose of its estimate, take account only of the costs it
reasonably expects to incur in relation to the request in-
(a) determining whether it holds the information,
(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information,
(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information, and
(d) extracting the information from a document containing it.
(4) To the extent to which any of the costs which a public authority takes
into account are attributable to the time which persons undertaking any of
the activities mentioned in paragraph
(3) on behalf of the authority are expected to spend on those activities,
those costs are to be estimated at a rate of £25 per person per hour.
5. (1) In circumstances in which this regulation applies, where two or
more requests for information to which section 1(1) of the 2000 Act would,
apart from the appropriate limit, to any extent apply, are made to a
public authority -
(a) by one person, or
(b) by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting
in concert or in pursuance of a campaign, the estimated cost of complying
with any of the requests is to be taken to be the total costs which may be
taken into account by the authority, under regulation 4, of complying with
all of them.
(2) This regulation applies in circumstances in which-
(a) the two or more requests referred to in paragraph (1) relate, to any
extent, to the same or similar information, and
(b) those requests are received by the public authority within any period
of sixty consecutive working days.
(3) In this regulation, "working day" means any day other than a Saturday,
a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a day which is a bank holiday
under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971(b) in any part of the
United Kingdom."  

COMPLAINT RIGHTS
Are you unhappy with how your request has been handled or do you think the
decision is incorrect?
You have the right to require the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to
review their decision.
Prior to lodging a formal complaint you are welcome to discuss the
response with the case officer who dealt with your request.  
Complaint
If you are dissatisfied with the handling procedures or the decision of
the MPS made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) regarding
access to information you can lodge a complaint with the MPS to have the
decision reviewed.
Complaints should be made in writing, within forty (40) working days from
the date of the refusal notice, and addressed to:
FOI Complaint
Information Rights Unit
PO Box 57192
London
SW6 1SF
[email address]
In all possible circumstances the MPS will aim to respond to your
complaint within 20 working days.
The Information Commissioner
After lodging a complaint with the MPS if you are still dissatisfied with
the decision you may make application to the Information Commissioner for
a decision on whether the request for information has been dealt with in
accordance with the requirements of the Act.
For information on how to make application to the Information Commissioner
please visit their website at www.ico.org.uk.  Alternatively, write to or
phone:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire

Consider our environment - please do not print this email unless
absolutely necessary.

NOTICE - This email and any attachments may be confidential, subject to
copyright and/or legal privilege and are intended solely for the use of
the intended recipient. If you have received this email in error, please
notify the sender and delete it from your system.  To avoid incurring
legal liabilities, you must not distribute or copy the information in this
email without the permission of the sender. MPS communication systems are
monitored to the extent permitted by law.  Consequently, any email and/or
attachments may be read by monitoring staff. Only specified personnel are
authorised to conclude any binding agreement on behalf of the MPS by
email. The MPS accepts no responsibility for unauthorised agreements
reached with other employees or agents.  The security of this email and
any attachments cannot be guaranteed. Email messages are routinely scanned
but malicious software infection and corruption of content can still occur
during transmission over the Internet. Any views or opinions expressed in
this communication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
represent those of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

 

Find us at:

Facebook: Facebook.com/metpoliceuk

Twitter: @metpoliceuk

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are James Laird please sign in and let everyone know.