Complaints of sexual offences and harassment made against serving officers from 2019-20 to 2021-22

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.026642

I note you seek access to the following information:

I am writing to ask that you please disclose how many formal complaints of rape, sexual assault, indecent assault, sexual harassment, harassment and/or bullying were brought against serving officers of the police force that falls under your remit (The Metropolitan Police), both internally and externally, in the last 3 years (2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22).

Specifically:
1. How many of these allegations have been made against serving male officers in each of the three years identified above?
2. How many of these allegations have been made against serving female officers in each of the three years identified above?
3. How many of these allegations against male officers were upheld?
4. How many of these upheld allegations against male officers resulted in disciplinary action?
5. How many male officers were dismissed from the force as a result of the disciplinary action (answer to Question 4) taken against them?
6. How many female police officers were dismissed from the force as a result of the disciplinary action (answer to Question 4) taken against them?
7. How many male officers have resigned or retired before the outcome of a police misconduct hearing (in the last 3 years 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-22)?
8. How many Non-Disclosure Agreements have female police officers signed as victims of rape, sexual assault, indecent assault, sexual harassment, harassment and/or bullying as of the last 3 years 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-22?

Decision

I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 40(2)(a)(b)&(3)(a)(i) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

The Section 40(2) Exemption relates to Questions. 2, 3, 4 & 5 where some data has been withheld. This is because the numbers are low and MPS believes that release of low numbers could lead to the identification of individuals. The exemption has been applied as disclosure of the data you have requested could identify living individuals linked to police investigations and proceedings. This constitutes personal data which would, if released, be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA (Data protection Act) 2018 and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

It is important to note that a Freedom of Information Act request is not a private transaction. Both the request itself and any information disclosed are considered suitable for open publication, that is, once access to information is granted to one person under the Act, it is then considered public information and must be communicated to any individual should a request be received. Any information released under the Act is also published on the MPS website.

Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3)(a)(i) - Personal Information - This is an absolute exemption which means that the legislators have identified that harm would be caused by any release. In addition there is no requirement to consider the public interest test.

In order to apply the Section 40(2) exemption the disclosure of the requested information must satisfy either the first, second or third conditions as defined by subsections 3(a), 3(b) and 4(c) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The first condition ensures that the exemption would apply in circumstances where the disclosure of the information would breach any of the Data Protection Act 2018 principles.

There are six Data Protection principles set out in the 2018 act and these can be found at section 34.

In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which states that the processing (in this case the disclosure) of the data must be both lawful and fair.

Disclosure

Please find attached Excel Spreadsheet with the information requested. Please note that numbers 5 or lower have been withheld and this is represented by a black space (**) within the attached tables.

Answers to Questions 1, 6 & & are also included in the attached Excel Spreadsheet.

ADDITIONAL CONTEXT/ ADVICE
With reference to dismissals, please note that some low numbers are because your request asks for the number of allegations in specific periods where some cases are still live and on-going and have not reached an outcome. Some cases were also raised in preceding years which therefore do not appear in this data.

The MPS takes any police-perpetrated abuse incidents extremely seriously and they are regularly scrutinised at a senior level.

Any allegation, disclosure or abuse perpetrated by an officer or member of staff is robustly investigated. Tackling violence and sexual offences is a priority for the Met and that includes when our own officers or staff are accused of these. We will not hesitate to bring forward prosecutions and disciplinary procedures where there is evidence to do so as the public rightly expect the highest standards from our employees.

For further information, please see:
MPS Rebuilding Trust