FOI 0091-2025/26 Voyeurism Offences
Request
I am writing to request the following information. Please can the information be broken down for each year between January 2020 - April 2025:
1) How many cases have been recorded by your force between January 2020 and April 2025 for the following offences:
disclosing, threatening to disclose, private sexual photographs and films with or without intent to cause distress
Sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film
Voyeurism
2) Can you provide any further information about these cases and include the outcome of each case in 1)?
3) The number of cases involving threats to share intimate photographs or films in which alleged victims were unwilling or unable to contribute to police efforts to prosecute the alleged offender, between January 2020 and April 2025.
Can you include the outcome and/or reason why the alleged victim did not continue with police efforts to prosecute the alleged offender.
4) The number of convictions and outcomes made each year between 2020 - 2025 for the following offences:
disclosing, threatening to disclose, private sexual photographs and films with or without intent to cause distress
Sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film
Voyeurism
5) The number of convictions involving threats to share intimate photographs or films by repeat offenders.
Can you include the outcome for each conviction
6) The number of reports of threats to share photographs or films which show, or appear to show, someone in an intimate state - This would be a breach of Section 188(4) of the Online Safety Act 2023
Can you include the outcome of each report
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 more than 600 offences, in order to determine the number of victims who were unwilling or unable to contribute to police efforts to prosecute the alleged offender, followed by a further manual review to determine the number of convictions, which 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). I may be able to provide you with a response to Question 1 and 2 if you wish to revise and resubmit your request, omitting Questions 3-6. 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.