Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the Freedom Of Information Act 2000

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be provided to you by 01/12/17 which is in accordance with the legislation.

Yours sincerely

Information Management Unit

Cara

In order for us to attempt to supply the information you are seeking, as there is no other search facility which would extract the information, you will need to supply keyword/s to be used in our searches.
These will then be used in searching for recorded incidents that may contain those keyword/s, and the results would reflect that criteria.

Your request remains on hold until we hear from you further. If we do not hear within 20 days this request will be closed without further contact.

Regards
Jan

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Below is noted, thanks

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Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your e mail dated 2 November 2017 in which you made a
request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria
Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1.    All reported sightings of big cats to your police force in the
calendar years 2014, 2015, and 2016 to date. Please provide the date,
approximate location and brief description of each sighting.

After we sought clarity you then gave us the following keywords to be used
for research.

big cat, panther, puma, black cat, wild cat and large animal.

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the
Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that
the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

1. 7

Date Location
Feb-14 Ashington
Nov-14 Killingworth
Feb-15 Westerhope/Newburn
Aug-15 Ashington
Nov-15 Morpeth
Apr-16 Prudhoe
Sep-16 Gateshead West & Blaydon

Data was collated through a search of all incidents created between
01/01/2014 and 31/12/2016 where the first 3 lines of the incident
description contained either 'big cat', 'panther', 'puma', 'black cat',
'wild cat' or 'large animal'.

These were filtered for those which were not relevant such as 'ford puma,'
'puma trainers' etc, and we have excluded reports of dead animals. 

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.

The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.

The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.

I have provided the relevant link below.

[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached below

[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely

Michael Cleugh

Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor

Direct Dial: 0191 2956941

[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]

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References

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1. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
2. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...