Police misconduct in 2020 and 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.024648

I note you seek access to the following information:

REQUEST 1:
I am seeking information on allegations of police misconduct in 2021, and their outcomes.

Could you please provide the following specific information:

1. A list of allegations of police officer sexual misconduct for the calendar year of 2021.

2. Please provide a break down of the nature of each of these allegations of sexual misconduct, as specifically as possible i.e. rape, groping etc.

3. Please provide a brief summary of each allegation of sexual misconduct e.g. ‘A male officer was alleged to have groped a female member of staff in the elevator.’

4. For each allegation of police officer sexual misconduct, please provide the outcomes of the allegation, including whether there was formal action taken, and if so, what the formal action(s) were e.g. dismissal or reflective practice.

I am aware of the Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption. Please only provide details which would not identify the individuals involved.

REQUEST 2:
I am seeking information on allegations of police misconduct in 2020 and 2021, and their outcomes.

Could you please provide the following specific information:

1. A list of allegations of police officer misconduct (of any kind) where reflective practice was an outcome for the calendar years of 2020 and 2021.

2. Please also list any other outcomes that were applied for each of these cases.

3. Please provide a brief summary of each of these allegations of misconduct e.g. ‘A male officer made an inappropriate and discriminatory comment to a colleague.’

4. For each case please provide a summary of what was involved in ‘reflective practice’ i.e. what did it involve, how many sessions, how long did it take, and what resources were used to carry out this practice.

I am aware of the Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption. Please only provide details which would not identify the individuals involved.

Some parts of this request may be easier to answer than others, and should this prove to be the case, I would ask that you release available data as soon as possible rather than hold up the entire request.

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 21 - Information reasonably accessible by other means
Section 40(2) - Personal Information

Reason for decision

Section 40 - Personal Information are absolute exemptions which means that the legislators have identified that harm would be caused by any release.

With regards to Request 1 - Q3 and Request 2 - Q3

Please provide a brief summary of each of these allegations of misconduct.

A Freedom of Information Act request is not a private transaction. Under Freedom of Information, any information disclosed is released into the wider public domain, effectively to the world, not just to one individual. To disclose the requested data in Q3, could publicly reveal information about an individual or individuals, thereby breaching the right to privacy afforded to persons under the Data Protection Act 1998.

The expansion in the summaries provide descriptions specific to the offences. It has been necessary to ensure an individual’s identity cannot be revealed by the information we disclose.

Such information would be internally sensitive and that there is a high likelihood of individuals being identifiable and the potential for the information to be combined with related information known to, or accessible by police officers and staff. This would be unwarranted as they would reasonably expect information relating to alleged misconduct to be held in confidence and not be disclosed for a non-law enforcement purpose.

Section 21 refers to REQUEST 1

OF NOTE

The information requested has been identified as being accessible via other means as it is already published. Where information is already in the public domain we are not required to re-publish the data; instead public authorities are required to direct you to the information, which we have done in this instance.

The MPS has produced data around all FOI requests received recently around the number of cases involving police officer/staff sexual offence allegation. The link below does include answer to your request as well as additional data from other applicants on the same subject i.e. sexual offences.
Please refer to this link-:
Serving officers accused of alleged sexual harassment/assault from 2010 to 2021

Disclosure

REQUEST 2
Q1 and Q2 – Please find attached spreadsheet titled ‘FOIA Response (24648) – Request 2.

Please also note that Request 2 – Q4

Q4 - For each case please provide a summary of what was involved in ‘reflective practice’ i.e. what did it involve, how many sessions, how long did it take, and what resources were used to carry out this practice.

This information is not recorded centrally.