FOI 0750-2025/26- Birds of prey crimes

Request:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information, for the periods between :

1st January 2020 through to 31st December 2020 inclusive 1st January 2021 through to 31st December 2021 inclusive 1st January 2022 through to 31st December 2022 inclusive 1st January 2023 through to 31st December 2023 inclusive 1st January 2024 through to 31st December 2024 inclusive 1st January 2025 through to date

For each period:

Q1. During the time frames, how many crimes involved the illegal killing /persecution of raptors / birds of prey - which includes those recorded under following police codes:

     - 19001 - Summary offences in relation to birds under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

     - 19002 - Summary offences in relation to nests and eggs of birds under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

      - 19003 - Summary offences in relation to birds under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

      - 19004 - Summary offences in relation to nests and eggs of birds under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

      - 19006 - Prohibition of certain methods of killing or taking wild birds (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981)

Q2. The number of raptor persecution-related cases (as above) reported and then NOT referred to the Crown Prosecution Service?

Q3. The number of raptor persecution-related cases (as above) reported and then referred to the Crown Prosecution Service?

Q4. The number of raptor persecution-related cases (as above) that led to a successful prosecution?

Response:

  Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision

I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.

In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all bird of prey reported incidents for the timeframe specified to establish which if any are related to the request, this manual process would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, we may be able to provide some information if you reduce your timeframe.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.