FOI 0123-2025/26 York World Naked Bike Ride
Request
Q1. Please provide all documents in relation to the naked bike ride York held by the Police since 1st May 2024 to date - 4th May 2025.
Q2. Please disclose the number of complaints you have received in relation to the naked bike ride in York.
Q3. Please disclose the nature of these complaints N.B this is not a request for identifiable personal details.
Q4. Please disclose how you police naked events - e.g. how many complaints about visibly sexually aroused exposed genitals in public is required to trigger a police response.
Q5. Please disclose how you police naked men who are visibly sexually aroused (i.e semi erect) in public - is the police response different if the man claims to be part of a protest, or if a man claims to be a woman whilst accessing a female single-sex changing room. Please provide your current policy/guidance.
Q6. Please include your current risk assessment for this particular event. Please include your process for balancing protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 e.g. age, sex and religious beliefs etc
Q7. Please disclose what consideration has been taken for ethnic minority groups, asylum seekers and migrants living in York or staying in York under the Sanctuary City scheme, Operation Scatter etc.
Clarification (Q7):
This request is in relation to how you have balanced the rights under Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 10 freedom of expression, Art 11 freedom of) of exposing ones naked genitals in public with the potential of being in sight of people from other cultures who hold religious beliefs which prohibit acts of public nudity.
What consideration has been given for those (who on account of their protected religious beliefs - Equality Act 2010) are likely to find this behaviour extremely offensive.
For example people from Islamic countries, in particular those who adhere to stricter interpretations of Sharia law such as Afghanistan, Iran and Syria etc have very strict modesty standards often requiring most of the body to be covered. Public nudity is considered a serious offence which can result in severe consequences.
York became a 'Sanctuary City' in 2016 and the UK's first 'Human Rights City' in 2017 - what evidence do you have to demonstrate that North Yorkshire Police have responded to these developments and balanced the rights of these groups specifically in relation to the Naked Bike Ride York.
Q8. Please confirm if the York naked bike ride will be permitted in York again this year 2025 and if this will be on the same basis as previous years.
Q9. Please disclose if specialist legal advice has been sought - in relation to my complaint regarding the event in June 2024. N.B this is not a request to see details of any such legal advice and is unlikely to be considered legally privileged information.
Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.
I can confirm that some of the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.
Decision
I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information to you.
Q1. The only document held is a Silver Assessment. I am exempting discosure of this information pursuant to Section 31 (Law Enforcement). Please see the below exemption explanation.
Q2. Two complaints (one complainant).
Q3. Alarm and distress.
Q4 & 5. Please be advised that this is not a valid request for information under the Freedom of information Act 2000 (“the Act”) as it does not fulfil the requirement of S8 of the Act. It is not a request for specific recorded information and the authority does not have to answer your questions if this would mean creating new information or giving an opinion or judgement that is not already recorded. Please be advised that the Act only extends to requests for recorded information. It does not require public authorities to answer questions generally and does not extend to requests for information about policies or their implementation, or the merits or demerits of any proposal or action unless the answer to any such request is already held in recorded form.
Q6. No risk assessments are held for this event.
Q7. No information held.
Q8. No information held. North Yorkshire Police do not make the decision as to whether a protest goes ahead. It is the responsibility of the Police to ensure public safety and to ensure that any protests are policed appropriately and proportionately.
Q9. No information held. I would suggest that you contact the North Yorkshire Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner (PFCC) for this information: [email protected]
Exemption Explanation
Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Section 31(1)(a)(b) – Law Enforcement
Section 31 is a prejudice-based qualified exemption and there is a requirement to articulate the harm as well as carrying out a public interest test.
Evidence of Harm
As you may be aware, disclosure under FOIA is a release to the public at large. Whilst not questioning the motives of the applicant, releasing any information held regarding considerations relating to public events / protests would allow criminals to note what capacity and tactical capabilities the force had, allowing them to target specific areas of the UK to conduct their criminal/terrorist activities. This would lead to an increase in harm of attacks and compromise Law Enforcement. This would be to the detriment of providing an efficient policing service and a failure in providing a duty of care to all members of the public.
Information that undermines the operational integrity of the police will adversely affect public safety and have a negative impact on both national security and law enforcement.
Factors favouring disclosure under Section 31
Releasing this information would provide an insight into the police forces’ ability to make effective decisions to prevent disorder and protect the public.
Information would ensure transparency and accountability and enable the public to see what tactics are deployed by the Police Service to tackle/assist in fighting crime.
Factors against disclosure under Section 31
It has been recorded that FOIA releases are monitored by criminals and terrorists and so releasing this information would undermine and compromise law enforcement and it would also hinder any local, regional or national operations. It can be argued that there are significant risks associated with providing information in relation to any aspects that can assist criminal planning and that any nation’s security arrangements, by releasing the information, may reveal the relative vulnerability of what we may be trying to protect.
The Police Service would not wish to reveal resource information that would undermine the law enforcement operations and would impact on police resources, as more crime would be committed because criminals/terrorists would know which forces had less/more capability. This in turn would place the public at a greater risk and a fear of crime would be realised, especially for more vulnerable areas.
Balance Test
The security of the public and the country is of paramount importance and the Police service will not divulge the resources, if to do so would place the safety of individuals at risk, due to providing freely available (single point) information under such requests and which in turn would undermine National Security or compromise law enforcement.
Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing resources and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately prepared and effectively engaging with the threat posed by various groups or individuals, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police resources and operations in the highly sensitive areas such as extremism, crime prevention, public disorder and terrorism prevention.
Having considered the public interest factors, I am required to determine whether on balance the factors favouring disclosure outweigh those which are against disclosure. It is my view that the factors favouring disclosure do not outweigh those which favour non-disclosure of the requested information. I would therefore inform you that North Yorkshire Police declines to release the information.
Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a refusal notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to this part of your request.
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.