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Arrests and common offences at London airports from January 2018 to May 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.030436

I note you seek access to the following information:

I would like to request information about the following airports:

London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
London Gatwick Airport (LGW)
London Stansted Airport (STN)
London Luton Airport (LTN)
London Southend Airport (SEN)
London City Airport (LCY)

For each of these airports, I would like to request the following:

Number of arrests
Most common offences

For both of these, I would like the data broken down for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 so far if possible.

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 Accessible by Other Means

Reason for decision

London Gatwick Airport (LGW)
London Stansted Airport (STN)
London Luton Airport (LTN)
London Southend Airport (SEN)

The searches failed to locate any information relevant to your request, therefore, the information you have requested is not held by the MPS.

I would like to take this opportunity to advise why the requested information is not held. The above four airports fall outside the jurisdiction of the MPS, therefore any records would be held by the relevant police force for that area i.e. Essex Police (Southend and Stansted), Bedfordshire Police (Luton) and Sussex Police (Gatwick).

In regards to arrest and outcome data for Heathrow and London City airports covering the period 2019 – 2021, I am pleased to inform you that this information is already in the public domain (see link below).

Arrests at Heathrow and London City Airports from 2019 to 2021

Therefore, this information has been identified as being accessible via other means as it is already published. Where information is already in the public domain the MPS 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. This action is in accordance with Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Disclosure

Please find attached data retrieved from the National Strategy for Police Information Systems (NSPIS) and CONNECT. These are the former and current system used within custody suites where information in regard to all persons being dealt with in a police custody centre are recorded.

This is relevant to the remaining time period of 2018, 2022 and for 2023 up to 31/05/2023.

You are advised to read the Notes Page of the report to allow you to interpret the data correctly.

In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to provide some additional context around the data which has been collated. Police record all allegations of offences reported at the Airport. The jurisdiction to investigate offences fall to the MPS where the offences have either been committed within the footprint of the airport or in the Air. Offences committed in flight are investigated by the MPS for all inbound flights regardless of the Airline. Offences committed in flight by a British Registered flights are investigated by MPS for all inbound flights and may take primacy for outbound flights.

The offences recorded are therefore not all committed at the Airport, but also includes offences in flight. All in flight offences are recorded to show the Airport as the venue because the Airport is first geographic address to record the allegation in accordance with crime recording standards, including Sexual offences and public order offences where passengers have been rowdy on a flight.

The increase of recorded crime at the Airport in 2022 against the same period of 2021 is expected due to the increase of passenger numbers returning to travelling post COVID.