Evidence on sexual offences lost related to Casey Report

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.033033

I note you seek access to the following information:

With respect to page 179 of the Casey report, there is evidence from an officer who states that they 'lost count' of the number of times that evidence on sexual offences had been lost.

What investigation has the Metropolitan Police Service taken into this allegation, and specifically the evidence lost when a freezer broke in 2022?

Decision

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

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

The MPS has responded to a similar request for information about the allegations made on page 179 of the Casey report. This request was recorded under MPS reference number 01/FOI/23/030859 and sought access to the following information:

1. How many "rape kits" [forensic samples] were rendered unusable in the 2022 incident referred to in the Casey report?

2. How many rape investigations were affected and how many of these were dropped as a result?

3. How many alleged rape victims/survivors were affected (i.e. how many people were the "rape kits" taken from?)

In answer to this request for information, the MPS provided the following information:

“The case studies presented by Baroness Casey in her Independent Review of the Met are anonymous. To answer this request we have therefore reviewed our records to identify incidents which may match the one presented in the report. Based on this approach, we are able to provide the information below. However you should be aware that we cannot be certain that the incident we believe this refers to is the incident that the anonymous case study highlights.

Please find below information pursuant to your request.

Q1. Based on the available information and our understanding of the incident no ‘rape kits’ (we interpret this as EEKs – Early Evidence Kits) were compromised in the 2022 incident referred to in final report.

Q2. There is no information to suggest any rape investigations were affected or dropped as a result.

Q3. Given the response to Q2, there is no information to indicate any rape victims/survivors were affected.

While we don’t believe any freezers used for the storage of exhibits for rape investigations (our public protection freezers) were involved in this incident, a freezer did break which resulted in a critical incident being declared locally. The Met put in place a number of measures to mitigate the situation and introduce a new freezer policy and procedures BCU wide.”

I can also confirm that there was no investigation into the allegation made by Officer G that she had “lost count” of the number of times she had asked a colleague where the necessary evidence was, before being told that it had been lost.