FAQ Details
Outstanding Arrest Warrants - 1003/11
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 28/12/2011
Date of response: 08/12/2011
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)
Thank you for your email dated 15 December 2011 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 by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
The number of outstanding arrest warrants currently in force by the constabulary. For each case, please disclose:
The name of the individual. As it is in the public interest for the police to apprehend alleged criminals, we believe the public interest in disclosure of the individual’s name outweighs any potential Section 40 exemption.
The date the warrant was issued.
The reason for the arrest eg nature of the alleged offence.
Why the warrant is outstanding eg individual failed to attend court/failed to turn up at police station to answer police bail.
In response:
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 Criminal Justice Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I have decided to disclose the located information to you as follows.
1, 3, 4 & 5. Please see the document attached below which answers your query for these parts of your request. All are 'Fail to Appear' warrants.
2. We shall not be disclosing this information and by withholding we will rely on the following exemption.
Section 40 (2) - Personal Information
Section 40 (2) is a class based absolute exemption and there is no requirement to consider the public interest in disclosure. That being said where Section 40(2) is engaged in order to make the exemption absolute there needs to be evidence that a data protection principle would be breached by disclosure. In this case it would not be fair to disclose information which identifies an individual. Therefore, the first principle of the Data Protection Act would be breached.
In a previous decision notice issued by the Information Commissioner to Sussex Police relating to disclosing an individual’s personal conviction data the ICO stated:
“… to reveal to the whole public whether someone was subject to a court case would be unfair. He does not feel that releasing sensitive personal data into the public domain will be fair unless there are exceptional circumstances. He considers that there is a general and reasonable expectation that if someone was to appear in court that the information would not be released to the public domain…”
You should consider this to be a refusal under section 17 of the Act for that part of your request.
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.
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 which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
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.
Downloads
FOI Complaint PolicyFOI 1003-11