Evidence that went missing from 2017 to 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.21.022453

I note you seek access to the following information:

1. For each of the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, how many pieces of evidence went missing from your force?
2. Of those pieces missing, where possible, please can you give us a breakdown of how they pertain to each home office crime code designation.
For example (20 MISSING PIECES - 5 – Violence against a person, 10 – Sexual Offences, 5 - Theft)

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

DATASET CONTEXT
In supplying the attached data there are caveats that you will need to note.

In an average year, the Met will seize approximately 600,000 pieces of evidence. In a five year period, this would equate to three million items of evidence; during this timeframe it was recorded that 3,428 – or 0.05 per cent – were recorded as ‘missing’.

The requested data was taken from the Electric Property Management System (e-PMS) where a missing location has been set up and combined with the original CJU PROPERTY data for the period requested. e-PMS is a Borough Exhibit Store Database used for recording exhibits and property movements in the exhibit store. Prior to the use of this system there was no centralisation of exhibit data and the MET were operating 61 stand-alone databases to record evidence/criminal exhibits. These old records taken from live CJU PROPERTY data were then migrated onto the single future proofed version e-PMS. This is a significant development which is expected to improve the recording processes going forward, as it provides the added benefits of enhanced visibility, detection and resilience to records relating to evidence storage.

In June 2019, the Met streamlined its recording system from the 61 standalone databases to the e-PMS centralised system. All new items were logged onto e-PMS from 16/09/2019. Only live data was migrated on 16th September 2019. Any missing data was archived as legacy data. At that point CJU PROPERTY ceased to be a live system; no new items were logged onto CJU PROPERTY from this time, only updated.

The second part of your request focuses on how the pieces of missing data pertain to each home office crime code designation. Please note that with the migration of live CJU PROPERTY data into e-PMS, the reason for loss mapping was not in a recognisable format. The decision was therefore made, that where it did not map to the new system and could not be identified, it was listed as Migrated Data, which you will note on the second row of the attached word document.

Items shown as missing are recognised as those that have not been located during audits. They have been placed in a ‘missing’ location on e-PMS and contain all data as entered onto e-PMS. This ‘missing’ location means that an item not found during an audit can then be easily identified and as such this changes over time during the lifecycle of the management of the exhibit. Items shown as missing at the time of the data extraction could have been recorded as such due to a number of reasons:

• Booked out to police officer
• Booked out to court proceeding
• Booked out for further investigation / evidence gathering
• Booked out for any reason and then returned in a different exhibit bag
• The item has been returned to the owner but database not updated
• Correctly destroyed but database not updated
• Incorrectly destroyed but database not updated
• Due to human or system error
• Actual lost items

Robust processes and procedures are in place to ensure that evidence is kept securely. We would strongly refute that corruption or theft played a significant part in these findings. It would also be incorrect to suggest that drugs and weapons regularly go missing.

The Met carries out enhanced checks when disposing of drugs, with a third party verification before they are disposed via the incineration process. The 81 drug related exhibits that were recorded ‘missing’ over the five year period is again, a small fraction of the total amount seized.

Cash handling is also very stringently managed by the Met, with specific counting, verification, security and banking processes in place. Robust procedures and audits are in place to minimise the volume and amount of cash that can be held in either local or central stores.