Assaults inside Nando's restaurants from 2021 to 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.029617

I note you seek access to the following information:

1) Please tell me how many of the following crimes were alleged to have occurred and recorded by your force as happening inside Nando's restaurants in the calendar years a) 2021 and b) 2022.

To include all assault offences

5D - Assault with intent to cause serious harm
8N - Assault with injury
8P - Racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury
105A - Assault without injury
105B - Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury

Please note I am only interested in assaults which occurred inside the restaurants' premises. To clarify, an assault that was recorded as having happened 'down the road from' Nando's would not be of interest, although one that happened inside the restaurant or at least in the doorway/entrance would be.

2) In addition, please state the addresses of the THREE Nando’s restaurants in your police force area with the most alleged/recorded assault offences between 2021 and 2022 on their premises, stating how many incidents occurred for each one.

3) In addition, please provide me with a verbatim copy of the “investigation summary field” and/or the modus operandi (MO) for the FIVE most recent cases recorded for each of the top three Nando’s locations. I understand these will have to be redacted to remove private information.

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:

Sec 40(2)(3A)(a) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

Sec 40(2)(3A)(a) – Personal Information - Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 confirms that information which relates to an identified or identifiable living individual is Personal Data.

The Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for Personal Data and this is known as the section 40 exemption.

Some information sought under your Freedom of Information request, if disclosed, could potentially lead to the identification of the individuals involved in the incidents. We consider this to be the Personal Data of those individuals.

Where the request is seeking access to third party personal data the Section 40(2) exemption may be engaged.

In order to apply the Section 40(2) exemption, the disclosure of the requested information must satisfy either the first, second or third conditions as defined by subsections 3(A), 3(B) and 4(A) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The first condition ensures that the exemption would apply in circumstances where the disclosure of the information would breach any of the Data Protection Act 2018 principles.

There are six Data Protection principles specified within Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of the Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which requires that personal data shall be:

‘processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’);

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, 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.

Disclosure

Please find below data in relation to your request.