Crimes reported at the Russian Embassy in London in 2019, 2020 and 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.023024

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please provide a list of reported crimes logged to the Russian Embassy in London (6, 7 Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QP) for the following years: 2019, 2020 and 2021 to the latest date available. I require the nature of the report and the outcome in each instance.

Clarification - I mean to say crime reports within the Russian embassy.

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 31(1)(a)(b) - Law Enforcement
Section 40(2)(3) - Personal Information

Reason for decision

To disclose the nature of the reported crime, would reveal and could potentially compromise law enforcement tactics and hinder the prevention or detection of crime. In addition, revealing the nature of the report could also lead to the identification of an individual or associating an incident to an individual.

Section 31 - Law Enforcement - FOIA is considered to be a release to the world as once the information is published the public authority, in this case the MPS, has no control over what use is made of that information.

To disclose the nature of the recorded individual report for an offence that occurred at the Russian Embassy in London would cause operational harm to the MPS and affect our ability to fulfil our core function of law enforcement. Disclosure would technically be releasing sensitive operational information into the public domain. This would allow members of the public, which includes those with a criminal intent, to improve their plans for causing disruption and would assist them in avoiding detection and apprehension, whilst placing individuals at greater risk. This is likely to impact on police resources and may cause the MPS to consider adapting their tactics and strategies when investigating offences at embassies.

Disclosure of the nature of individual reports could dissuade other members of the public from engaging with the police in the future if they infer the MPS is not considerate in its approach to their confidentiality.

Disclosing the crime report nature could compromise the current or future law enforcement role of the MPS. Modern-day policing is intelligence led and information of this nature needs to be treated with extreme sensitivity, as it could have a detrimental effect on the operational effectiveness of the MPS. There are significant risks associated with the release of such information as this may provide those seeking to commit criminal acts with an advantage over the MPS and other forces. This is because the information can indeed be viewed as operational 'intelligence' and operationally sensitive. Disclosure could have a negative effect on the MPS’s ability to undertake similar types of operations.

To disclose the requested information would therefore provide those seeking to commit criminal acts with an opportunity of disrupting police activity. Therefore, disclosure could be to the detriment of providing an efficient policing service and a failure in providing a duty of care to all members of the public.

Release would have the effect of compromising law enforcement activity, as by disclosing the nature of the report to gather intelligence would hinder the prevention and detection of crime. More crime would be committed and individuals could be placed at risk.

To disclose details of the reported crime would allow one to infer the level of resources/capability being deployed on an operation or investigation. Disclosing specific details of these could be used by those with a criminal intent to seek to identify and exploit perceived vulnerabilities at a specific location. This could enable individuals to assess when and where they have a higher chance of undertaking a criminal offence without being detected or evading capture.

Disclosure would be releasing sensitive operational information into the public domain which would enable those with the time, capacity and inclination to try and map strategies used by the MPS.

Additionally MPS resources and its ability to operate effectively and efficiently would directly be affected as this information could be manipulated by those with criminal intent to operate in those areas.

As much as there is public interest in knowing that policing activity is appropriate and balanced, this will only be overridden in exceptional circumstances. The Police Service is charged with enforcing the law, preventing and detecting crime as well as protecting the communities we serve. Any disclosure of information, which could assist an offender and prejudice the MPS’s ability to bring that perpetrator to justice, cannot be in the public interest. This information is therefore sensitive information of intelligence value to a criminal or terrorist.

Section 40 - Personal information - Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, Public Authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). I have applied this exemption in that disclosing details of the nature of the report could lead to the identification of an individual or associating an incident to an individual. It places information about an individual into the public domain without a fair or lawful purpose. This would constitute personal data which, if released, would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA.

The six principles of the DPA govern the way in which data controllers must manage personal data. Under principle one of the DPA, personal data must be processed fairly and lawfully.

Disclosure

Please see below for information pursuant to your request. This intelligence was recorded on the Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS), which is a database where information relating to criminal activity and its investigation is recorded.

A search was conducted on this database for all offences recorded during the period of 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2021.

For this search, the VEN Address was set to %W8%4QP%, the Russian Embassy postcode. This was manually filtered to include only those that occurred at the specific address requested by the applicant. Those which include outside, opposite, near and junction with were included in the data extraction. These were manually removed from the results.

Other Accepted Crimes were excluded from the search because they are non-notifiable offences; only Total Notifiable Offences were searched for.

Following this search, the relevant CRIS offence record numbers were reviewed and filtered by PaDP. This was done to determine the relevance of each case to the request, the specific location of the offence (e.g. whether it occurred inside the embassy building), the specific nature of the reports and to confirm the outcomes.

In relation to your request, the number of recorded offences that occurred within the building of the Russian Embassy in London investigated by the MPS, including the relevant Total Notifiable Offence category, is as follows.

2020
Arson and Criminal Damage – 1 offence

There are no recorded offences which occurred inside this address for 2019 and 2021.

In relation to the offence outcome, this recorded offence is logged as investigation complete: no suspect identified.