Section 127 arrests and prosecutions

The request was successful.

Dear Kent Police,

Please can you provide the annual count for your Constabulary of arrests, charges, number of assailants released on bail or released without charge, and successful and non-successful prosecutions (those that went to Court but were dismissed) under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 from its introduction in 2003 to date - specifically with reference to social media communications, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If 2018 information is not yet fully available, please identify what is currently available and provide as much as possible if you could.

Yours faithfully,

Alex Morris
Politics Student

Freedom of Information Kent,

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Morris,

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF 19/02/250

 

Thank you for your request received by Kent Police on 13 February 2019. I
note you seek access, in summary, to information relating to:

 

Section 127 Communications Act 2003

 

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) provides that a public
authority respond to an FOI request within 20 working days. Please be
aware that as well as experiencing very high request volumes, Kent Police
is currently in the process of transitioning to a new crime recording
database. This means that whilst we will endeavour to complete your
request as soon as possible it is likely that a response may well be
delayed, particularly where crime data is sought.

 

Your interest in Kent Police is appreciated and pending a specific
response to your request, I enclose a sheet, which summarises your rights.
Should you have any further inquiries concerning this matter, please write
or contact us via the following telephone numbers 01622 652610 quoting the
reference number above.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Alan Muggridge

Public Disclosure Officer

Information Security and Governance

Kent Police

This email and any other accompanying document(s) contain information from
Kent Police and/or Essex Police, which is confidential or privileged. The
information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s)
or bodies to whom it is addressed. The content, including any subsequent
replies, could be disclosable if relating to a criminal investigation or
civil proceedings. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that
any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of the contents of this
information is prohibited. If you have received this email in error,
please notify us immediately by contacting the sender or telephoning Kent
Police on 01622 690690 or Essex Police on 01245 491491, as appropriate.
For further information regarding Kent Police’s or Essex Police’s use of
personal data please go to
https://www.kent.police.uk/policy/privac... or
https://www.essex.police.uk/copyright-pr...

Dear Freedom of Information Kent,

Upon receiving information from another Constabulary, I would like to amend this FOI in order to keep it within your time limits, and to enable it to be easier for you to work with.
If you use the Home Office Counting Rules, please use 8/72: ‘Sending letters etc with intent to cause anxiety.’ Again, I would like the number of arrests and charges per annum from 2003 to date. I understand that this may not have been a notifiable crime prior to 2015, but I would still like the number of arrests and numbers in custody prior to this time, categorised under this 8/72 counting rule; as well as the crime count for 2015 to date (as well as arrest and charge count – just to clarify).
Please ignore the part of the FOI requesting information on prosecution. I will attempt to request this separately from HMCTS.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Morris

Dear Freedom of Information Kent,

The legislated time for a response to this FOI request has now passed. Can you provide me with an update please?

Yours sincerely,

Alex Morris

Freedom of Information Kent,

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Morris,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF 19/02/250

Thank you for your request received by Kent Police on 13 February 2019.

Please can you provide the annual count for your Constabulary of arrests, charges, number of assailants released on bail or released without charge, and successful and non-successful prosecutions (those that went to Court but were dismissed) under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 from its introduction in 2003 to date - specifically with reference to social media communications, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If 2018 information is not yet fully available, please identify what is currently available and provide as much as possible if you could.

Unfortunately your request engages the cost exemption at Section 12 FOIA. Section 12 provides an exemption from a public authority’s obligation to comply with a request for information where the cost of compliance is estimated to exceed the appropriate limit. The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 state that the appropriate cost limit is 18 hours in the case of the Police Service.

The reason for this is that the information requested will be stored on separate parts of the electronic recording database which cannot be linked automatically. Custody (arrest) data, crime data, and case (prosecution) data are stored separate from each other, and to find all of the information requested will require the manual review of all crime reports under ‘Sending Articles/Communications of Offensive/Threatening etc Nature’, cross referenced with any related custody records and case records; this will involve many thousands of records even for a single year and is estimated to exceed 18 hours work.
This is further complicated as it is not possible to report automatically to determine if social media may have formed part of the offence, and would require a further manual review of the free text enquiry log of each crime report.

When Section 12 is engaged, our duty under Section 16 requires that we assist you in refining your request so as to bring it within the cost limit. In this instance we would suggest the following refinement:

The number of recorded offences under HO Code 8/72 ‘Sending Articles/Communications of Offensive/Threatening etc Nature’ from 2003 to present, with recorded crime outcome (charge, caution, etc.)

I apologise that this reaches you outside of the twenty working day limit, but if you would like to proceed with the refined request please advise us and we will log and process the new request as soon as possible. You will be contacted with a new reference number if this is the case.

Should you have any further inquiries concerning this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Muggridge
Public Disclosure Officer
Information Security and Governance
Kent Police

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Dear Freedom of Information Kent,

Thank you for the reply. This amendment you suggested was already sent 3 days after the original request as a clarification on the FOI as follows:

"Upon receiving information from another Constabulary, I would like to amend this FOI in order to keep it within your time limits, and to enable it to be easier for you to work with.
If you use the Home Office Counting Rules, please use 8/72: ‘Sending letters etc with intent to cause anxiety.’ Again, I would like the number of arrests and charges per annum from 2003 to date. I understand that this may not have been a notifiable crime prior to 2015, but I would still like the number of arrests and numbers in custody prior to this time, categorised under this 8/72 counting rule; as well as the crime count for 2015 to date (as well as arrest and charge count – just to clarify).
Please ignore the part of the FOI requesting information on prosecution. I will attempt to request this separately from HMCTS."

As this is the same request, I would like you to go ahead with that, though it would seem to me that we are now well outside the legislated timeframe for the request. I therefore request that this FOI is dealt with as quickly as possible please.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Morris

Freedom of Information Kent,

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Morris,

Your suggested refinement dated 16 February 2019 engages the same issues as the original request, as it relates to arrests. Home Office code 8/72 applies to crime reports only, the code cannot be attached automatically to arrest records. As such to determine the number of custody (arrest) records which may relate to offences under 8/72 would require the extensive manual review of any number of custody records to determine if they may result in the creation of a crime report under Home Office code 8/72, which would amount to many thousands of records and engage the exemption at Section 12.

In summary, we cannot respond to this request within cost if based on arrests; the only way to provide a response within cost is to base the request on crime reports, as suggested in the refinement provided 26 March 2019:

The number of recorded offences under HO Code 8/72 ‘Sending Articles/Communications of Offensive/Threatening etc Nature’ from 2003 to present, with recorded crime outcome (charge, caution, etc.)

If you would like us to proceed with this refinement, please let us know.

Yours sincerely,

Public Disclosure Officer
Information Security and Governance
Kent Police

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Dear Freedom of Information Kent,

Yes, that's fine, thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Morris

Freedom of Information Kent,

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Morris,

Thank you for your clarification, we are now processing your request under file reference: 19/04/546.

Kind Regards,

Lakeisha Dowsey-Magog
Public Disclosure Assistant
Information Security and Governance
Kent Police

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Freedom of Information Kent,

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Morris

 

With reference to the Freedom of Information request that we received from
you on 3^rd April 2019 please find attached the response letter and
accompanying appendix.

 

Should you have any queries relating to this then please do not hesitate
to contact us.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Public Disclosure Officer

Information Security and Governance

Kent Police

 

 

 

 

 

 

This email and any other accompanying document(s) contain information from
Kent Police and/or Essex Police, which is confidential or privileged. The
information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s)
or bodies to whom it is addressed. The content, including any subsequent
replies, could be disclosable if relating to a criminal investigation or
civil proceedings. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that
any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of the contents of this
information is prohibited. If you have received this email in error,
please notify us immediately by contacting the sender or telephoning Kent
Police on 01622 690690 or Essex Police on 01245 491491, as appropriate.
For further information regarding Kent Police’s or Essex Police’s use of
personal data please go to
https://www.kent.police.uk/policy/privac... or
https://www.essex.police.uk/copyright-pr...