Data on sexual offences in public toilets and taxi/private hire drivers caught drunk/drug driving from 2013 to 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.034653

I note you seek access to the following information:

*********NEW REQUEST*********
I would like to request the number of sexual assaults and rapes taken place in public toilets within your jurisdiction in the past 10 years.

Specifically, I am interested in the following:
- How many sexual assaults and rapes against people aged over 18 have been reported which are alleged to have taken place at public toilets in your jurisdiction between December 2013 to the most recent month?
- How many sexual assaults and rapes against people aged under 18 have been reported which are alleged to have taken place at public toilets in your jurisdiction between December 2013 to the most recent month?
- How many cases had an outcome of charge/summons?
- If possible, please also list each case with some available details of the incident, for example what you were called out to attend and the location (e.g. borough) of the toilet.
- If 10 years of data is not available, please provide data from the earliest month you can trace to the most recent month.

**********OLD REQUEST********
I would like to request the number of sexual assaults and rapes taken place in public toilets within your jurisdiction in the past 10 years.

Specifically, I am interested in the following:
- How many sexual assaults and rapes against people aged over 18 have been reported which are alleged to have taken place at public toilets in your jurisdiction between December 2013 to December 2023?
- How many sexual assaults and rapes against people aged under 18 have been reported which are alleged to have taken place at public toilets in your jurisdiction between December 2013 to December 2023?
- What are the genders of the perpetrators and victims?
- How many cases had an outcome of charge/summons?
- If possible, please also list each case with some available details of the incident, for example what you were called out to attend and the location (borough) of the toilet.
- If 10 years of data is not available, please provide data from the earliest month you can trace to the most recent month.
I would like to request the number of taxi and private hire drivers caught for drunk and drug driving in London in the past 10 years.

Specifically, I am interested in the following:

- Monthly recorded number of drunk and drug driving taxi and private hire drivers from December 2013 to December 2023

- How many incidents caused deaths?

- If the driver was working for a private hire company, please specify the company’s name (e.g. Uber, Freenow).

- If possible, please specify the drug(s) taken by the driver

- If monthly data is not available, please provide yearly data.

- If 10 years of data is not available, please provide data from the earliest month you can trace to the most recent month.

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 40(2)(a)(b)(3)(A)(i) – Personal Information.

Reason for decision

Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, public authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

You have asked us to provide information in relation charges for sexual offences and rapes that have been committed in public toilets, over a defined period, and have further asked for the information to be broken down by year.

Whilst it is possible to disclose the number of charges for sexual assaults and rapes that have been committed in public toilets over this time period, to seperate charges sexual assualts and rapes broken down by year and the number of charges identified, this would present a strong risk of identification of individual/s involved in the offence. This would breach the right to privacy afforded to persons under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Further to this, you have also asked for this information to be broken down by the Borough the offence occurred in. Once again, narrowing the information to this level would once again present a strong risk of ideniffication of individual/s involved in the offence. As such we will not be providing the information broken down by Borough.

The victims of these offences would not reasonably expect this information to be published by the MPS and I have found that as no prior consent has been given to release this personal data any release would accordingly be unfair to them. In the case of legitimate processing, it is not appropriate to release this information and the exemption provided by Section 40(2)(3) of the Act is therefore engaged.

I have applied this exemption in that the disclosure of the requested information could cause a living person's identity to be revealed. If this occurs due to the information provided by the MPS, this constitutes personal data, which would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA.

The eight principles of the DPA govern the way in which data controllers must manage personal data. Under principle one of the DPA, personal data must be processed fairly and lawfully.

In reaching my decision I have given due regard to Condition one and six of Schedule 2 of the DPA.

The exemption provided under section 40 becomes absolute and class based in cases where disclosure would contravene the principles of the Data Protection Act. Therefore I am not required to provide a prejudice test or public interest test.

Disclosure

Please find the data you have requested below.

The answer to your first and second question can be found in Table 1. The partial answer (as explained above) to your third question can be found in Table 2.