Activity that took place on or relating to land owned/managed by Forestry England

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.034830

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please could you provide me the numbers of the types of activity listed below that took place on or relating to land owned or managed by Forestry England for each of the years 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 in your force area?

a) Number of Calls to 101 or 999
b) Number of Crime reports for Wildlife, Environmental and rural crime
c) Number of Crime reports for other offences, broken down by type
d) Number of Arrests
e) Number of reports of Anti-social behaviour

Below is a list of Forestry England sites I believe are in your force area. I am also aware that sometimes incidents are reported vaguely such as "the woods off of London Road" without the full address. Please could you do your best to capture these incidents too when they are on Forestry England land. Could you also include any other Forestry England sites that you cover that I may have missed please.

Sites;

Ingrebourne Hill
Berwick Glades
Bonnetts Wood
Cely Woods
Thames Chase Forest Centre & Broadfields
Folkes Lane Woodland
Pages Wood
Harold Court Woods
Tylers Wood

There are a number of online sources that provide details of Forestry England sites, including: the Forestry Commission map browser and Land Information Search.

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 38(1) - Health and Safety
Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3)(a)(i)(ii)(b) - Personal information

Reason for decision

To disclose the number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low could cause an individual to be identified and interfere with any ongoing investigation. This cannot be allowed. Consideration must also be given to the mental state of the individual/victim/families if identified.

Section 31(1)(a)(b) – Law Enforcement - Disclosure of the number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low risks the identity of the victim/suspect being revealed. This may cause an investigation to collapse as the individual could be targeted, or undermine the confidence in the police.

Disclosure of the information requested could identify persons captured by the scope of this request. Individuals could analyse the information (and along with local knowledge) identify the individual concerned. This would hinder the prevention and detection of crime and also prejudice the MPS's ability to fairly conduct an investigation.

Section 38(1) - Health and safety - Disclosure of the number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low will provide any person with knowledge of the offence, incident and where it took place, to use the information disclosed to work out who the individual may be and cause that person (or others) much distress and harm. This could compromise the mental health of the person involved or/and the ongoing or any other future investigation.

Disclosure of the number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low could jeopardise the mental state and safety of the individual. This will not be in the public interest. If this information was to fall into the hands of others involved/aware the information can be used to undermine the security and safety of the wider community and/or the person concerned.

The harm identified above, is reduced by not disclosing low value statistics, to ensure the identity of subjects captured by this request is not revealed.

It is imperative that the safety and identity of those captured by this request, or the compromising of the investigation was not a factor, when trying to be transparent in disclosing as much information as possible. The MPS has a duty of care to the communities served. In view of the arguments provided above, it is our opinion, that disclosure in full of the number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low cannot be permitted.

The MPS response for the rest of this request permits the disclosure of statistical information which is not likely to lead to the identification of individuals.

Section 40(2)(3)&(4) – 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.

The information sought under your Freedom of Information request includes the following which we consider to be Personal Data

The number of arrests including the location of the arrests and the number of sexual offences including the location the sexual offences took place in where the value is too low.

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 3A, 3B and 4A of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (as amended by Schedule 19 of the Data Protection Act 2018, specifically Section 58 of that schedule).

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 set out in the 2018 act and these can be found at section 34.

In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of the Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which states that the processing (in this case the disclosure) of the data must be both lawful and fair.

It should not be surmised that we are applying Sections 31, 38 & 40 to the same pieces of information.

Disclosure

Please see the attached redacted excel spreadsheet containing the rest of the data requested.