Abortion related crimes by females from March 2014 and March 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.025430

I note you seek access to the following information:

I am writing to submit a request for data on abortion-related crimes recorded by the police force between March 2014 and March 2022.

Part 1
Please tell me how many females were investigated for abortion-related crimes under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act during this time.

For each of these crimes I would also like the following specific information provided:
The subsection of the Act the female was investigated under ie:
a) Administering drugs or using instruments to procure an abortion, or
b) Procuring drugs/instruments to cause an abortion
c) Whether the female suspect was the pregnant party, and was thus
d) investigated on suspicion of procuring or attempting to procure her own abortion
e) The ethnicity of the suspect
f) The age of the suspect
g) The month and year the offence was recorded
h) The outcome recorded (including no outcome recorded, where relevant)

Part 2
I would also like data on how many females were investigated for intentional destruction of a viable unborn child under the 1929 Infant Life (Preservation) Act. For these crimes, please tell me:
a) Whether the female suspect was the pregnant party, and was thus investigated on suspicion of destroying her own child
b) The ethnicity of the suspect
c) The age of the suspect
d) The outcome recorded (including no outcome recorded, where relevant)

Please provide the data in a machine readable format. I would suggest a spreadsheet with the following columns:

A - Month
B - Calendar year
C - Offence (eg administering drugs/instrument, procuring drugs/instrument, or child destruction)
D - Pregnant party (true or false)
E - Ethnicity
F - Age
G - Outcome

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)&(3) - Personal Information

Reason for decision

The Section 40 Exemption has been applied because, due to these low numbers, any further breakdown of the data could lead to the identification of individuals.

We can advise, however, that there is no field on the CRIS system to specify whether the suspect is pregnant themselves or acting on behalf of another female. This could be established by reading the 5 reports, however, these details could lead to the identification of individuals and will not be disclosed under FOIA.

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. This is because, under Freedom of Information, any information disclosed is released into the wider public domain, effectively to the world and not just to one individual. Any release is also published on the MPS website and therefore available to the world.

Section 40(2)&(3) - Personal Information - Section 40(2)(a)(b) of the Act provides that any information to which a request for information relates, is exempt information if the first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) is satisfied. The first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) states that personal information is exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. If the disclosure of the requested personal data would not contravene the data protection principles, the disclosure must also not contravene Sections 3A(b) and 3B of the Act.

There are six principles that are set out in Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that dictate when the processing of personal data is lawful. The first principle requires that any processing of personal data must be lawful, fair and transparent. Under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, the disclosure of personal data is considered to be lawful if:

a. There is a legitimate interest in the disclosure of that personal data.
b. The disclosure of the personal data is necessary to meet that legitimate interest.
c. The disclosure would not cause unwarranted harm to the data subject.

The provision to refuse access to information under Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3A)(a) of the Act is both absolute and class based. When this exemption is claimed, it is accepted that harm would result from disclosure. There is accordingly no requirement to demonstrate what that harm may be in refusing access to information.

Disclosure

For the period requested, our records show a total of 5 offences, all with female suspects.