Registered Sex Offenders classed as missing/whereabouts unknown/wanted from April 2018 to April 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028089

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please could you tell me how many registered sex offenders in your force area were classed as missing/whereabouts unknown/wanted in each of the following years: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

For each of these missing sex offenders, could you tell me the following:

1 - What the risk level is of each (i.e. low, medium or high risk, or in whatever way you record this)

2 - Whether they are believed to be abroad, in the UK, or your in your force area (if possible)

Decision

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

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

Q1 - What the risk level is of each (i.e. low, medium or high risk, or in whatever way you record this)

If the MPS does not have an up-to-date address and we are unable to locate them, they have breached their notification requirements and will be liable to prosecution. These offenders will be classified as wanted by the police rather than missing. The total wanted sex offenders for London are shown below.

As of 1 April each year the Metropolitan Police had the following amount of wanted offenders
As of 1 April 2018 – 247
As of 1 April 2019 – 254
As of 1 April 2020 – 244
As of 1 April 2021 – 226

These results are available at the end of each financial year so the total for 2022 won’t be available until 01/04/2023

- What the risk level is of each (i.e. low, medium or high risk, or in whatever way you record this)

1 April 2018 – 3 Very High, 99 High, 80 Medium, 54 Low and 11 not assessed = 247
1 April 2019 – 8 Very High, 90 High, 85 Medium, 63 Low and 8 not assessed = 254
1 April 2020 – 2 Very High, 89 High, 82 Medium, 62 Low and 9 not assessed = 244
1 April 2021 – 4 Very High, 81 High, 85 Medium, 47 Low and 9 not assessed = 226

Q2 - Whether they are believed to be abroad, in the UK, or your in your force area (if possible)

This question, as it reads is not a valid question under S8(1)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act, as you are requesting for our beliefs if they are abroad or in UK, which I feel it asking for opinion.

Section 8 - Request for information - In this Act any reference to a “request for information” is a reference to such a request which - (c) describes the information requested.

However, to provide you with some guidance on this question - if you were to ask how many were abroad, in the UK or in the force area this would be deemed a valid request. This would be logged as a new request and searches would be conducted accordingly.