Number of serving officers with convictions

The request was partially successful.

Dear City of London Police,

Since 2007, how many police officers have worked and/or continue to work for Cambridgeshire Police whilst having criminal or civil convictions? Also could you supply a list of the offences along with the number of officers related to each offence?

This request is being made under the Freedom of Information Request. It’s within the Public Interest to know the answer to this question and any refusal will be treated as a sign of guilt that City of London Police has something to hide from the Public. Namely how many of its officers are convicted criminals.

Yours faithfully,

James Alec Newman
4TheRecord.org

"Since 2007, how many police officers have worked and/or continue to work for City of London* police whilst having criminal or civil convictions? Also could you supply a list of the offences along with the number of officers related to each offence?"

*Corrected mistake from Cambridgeshire to City of London

Knox Alexander,

1 Attachment

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

Acknowledgement

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Knox Alexander,

2 Attachments

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

Dear Mr Newman,

 

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION REF:  COL/12/26

 

I write in connection with your request for information dated 16 January
2012 in which you seek access to the following information:

 

 1. Since 2007, how many police officers have worked and/or continue to
work for City of London* police whilst having criminal or civil
convictions? Also could you supply a list of the offences along with
the number of officers related to each offence?"

 

The City of London Police does not routinely hold a list of convictions of
officers.

 

Any information held would be in manual records where officers have
disclosed their convictions upon joining; however, as convictions are not
an item required to be recorded or retained in the individual personal
record as required by Regulation 15 of The Police Regulations 2003, it is
not certain that the personnel records would be complete in this respect.

 

To discover the information known to the force would require the personnel
record of every officer in the force to be examined and cross-referenced
with local force systems and Professional Standards records and then
verified with the officer concerned.

 

It is estimated that this would take 30 minutes per officer, and there are
836 officers within the City of London Police; therefore this would exceed
the time limit as prescribed by the Freedom of Information Act and
therefore this work has not been done.

 

 

Should you have any further questions regarding your request, please
contact me via e-mail, letter or telephone, quoting the reference number
above.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

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Dear City of London Police,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of City of London Police's handling of my FOI request 'Number of serving officers with convictions'.

Would you have me believe that City of London Police are not aware how many of its officers are convicted criminals?

Would City of London risk sending a convicted rapist to comfort a rape victim? How about a convicted thief investigating theft?

It is clearly in the Public Interest to know how many of the 800+ officers in your force have criminal convictions. My request was reasonable and any professional police force which City of London are claiming to be should already have a database of those officers with convictions.

Without knowing this information one must assume that the City of London holds the majority of serving convicted criminals for rape, assault, theft, robbery, drug possession, intent to supply, etc.

Maybe the intention of City of London Police is to lose trust and respect. If that's the case I must say you are winning on that front. I for one shall never call the police whilst in the City of London even if I witness a crime. Why should I risk coming into contact with a criminal?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nu...

Yours faithfully,

James Newman

Carson Philip,

 NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED - NO DESCRIPTOR

Dear Mr Newman
Further to your email of 26th June 2012 can I firstly apologise for the
delay in replying to you owing to the senior officer undertaking the
review retiring from the police service.  I am the Professional Standards
Director in the City of London Police and as such am unconnected with the
original request from you.

You wrote to us to seek an internal review of your Freedom of Information
request about the number of serving officers with convictions. The purpose
of this review is to have a senior officer cast fresh eyes over the
request and the response and to provide further clarity or explanation, or
indeed any improvement to existing police systems.  They are intended as a
fair and impartial means of reviewing the original request process.  In
answer to each of your points (in italics) I would state the following:

Would you have me believe that City of London Police are not aware how
many of its officers are convicted criminals?

Your original request read "Since 2007, how many police officers have
worked and/or continue to work for City of London police whilst having
criminal or civil convictions?  Also could you supply a list of the
offences along with the number of officers related to each offence?"  Any
organisation would find it extremely difficult to answer that question
accurately owing to the breadth of criminal and civil law, the implied
timeframe (back to late 1960’s) and availability of accurate information. 
For example, the fact that information regarding cautions for minor
offences, are deleted over time. 

I can confirm that the information that you have requested is held by the
force, but not in a separate document.  In order to extract this
information it would be necessary to examine each officer’s employment
application manually and cross-reference it with any conviction history
held on the Police National Computer, which only contains Recordable
Criminal Offences.  It is estimated that it would take 30 minutes for each
of the 836 serving officers and a total of 418 hours.  The cost of
completing this work would exceed the limit prescribed by the Secretary of
State in accordance with powers contained in Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act.  The limit is currently set at £450 and agreed hourly
rate is set at £25.  The guidance of the Information Commissioner’s Office
is that once one part of the request exceeds the statutory limit, the
whole request should be regarded as over cost and that is the reason that
the work was not done.

I am sorry that this was not explained more clearly in the original
response.

Would City of London risk sending a convicted rapist to comfort a rape
victim? How about a convicted thief investigating theft?

This implies a different question to the one asked in the original
request.  There are no convicted rapists working in the City of London
Police, but there are examples of officers with convictions for road
traffic offences. 

It is clearly in the Public Interest to know how many of the 800+ officers
in your force have criminal convictions. My request was reasonable and any
professional police force which City of London are claiming to be should
already have a database of those officers with convictions.

All criminal convictions, including those involving police officers are
maintained on a national criminal record database.  Civil and other
convictions and findings are not.  The point about whether officers with
criminal convictions, is a public interest issue, is one that I would
support.

Without knowing this information one must assume that the City of London
holds the majority of serving convicted criminals for rape, assault,
theft, robbery, drug possession, intent to supply, etc.

I am unable to follow the logic of this statement and therefore am unable
to comment.
Maybe the intention of City of London Police is to lose trust and respect.
If that's the case I must say you are winning on that front. I for one
shall never call the police whilst in the City of London even if I witness
a crime. Why should I risk coming into contact with a criminal?

Police officers are subject to the highest standards of integrity and
behaviour and scrutinised and held accountable to a high degree.   On an
individual level, because all recruiting, vetting and selection decisions
are made on a case-by-case basis I am satisfied that there are robust
mechanisms already in place within City of London Police to manage any
risk in relation to criminal, civil and indeed conduct and performance
issues relating to individual officers.  Moreover, whenever a matter is
taken to court, the court is informed of any officer who has a criminal
conviction.  These checks and balances are constantly improving for
example we are about to require all new recruits to undergo fingerprint
and DNA testing before being accepted as police officers. 

I do however think that the force could do more to earn the trust of the
public by having this information more readily available and I will
undertake to raise the issue as an organisational learning point with the
senior managers of the force and examine whether there are steps we can
take to be better informed about the overall picture.

I am sorry that you were not happy with the original response to your
Freedom of Information request and that you had to take the time to ask
for this internal review.  However, I am satisfied that the response by
the City of London Police was reasonable and accurately reflects the
degree to which the force is able to release the information requested.

I understand that if you remain dissatisfied as a result of this first
review that you have further rights of appeal to the Information
Commissioner’s Office.

For information on how to make application to the Information Commissioner
please visit their website at:
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
<[1]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk>
Alternatively, phone or write to:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Phone:  01625 545 700

Yours sincerely

Phil Carson
Detective Superintendent
Professional Standards Director
If you are aware of wrongdoing in the workplace, please contact SafeCall
who are trained to receive reports of corruption, dishonesty, unethical
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SafeCall - 0800 915 1571

P Please consider the environment before printing my email

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References

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1. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
2. http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/

Mr Wrighte left an annotation ()

How was this statement qualified without actually carrying out the FOI;

"There are no convicted rapists working in the City of London police"

?