FOI 0228-2025/26 Acid Attacks

Request
For each calendar year from 2019, including 2025 to date: 

Q1. The number of offences that were categorised as an acid attack or corrosive fluid offence, broken down by month.

Q2. The number of offences mentioned in question 1 that were recorded as Violent Offences within the category 'Violence Against the Person'.

Q3. The number of threats of acid attacks/corrosive fluid attacks against the person, broken down by month.

Q4. The ethnicity, age and gender of victims of the offences mentioned in question 1, broken down by calendar year. 

Q5. The ethnicity, age and gender of victims of the offences mentioned in question 2, broken down by calendar year.

Q6. The ethnicity, age and gender of victims of the offences mentioned in question 3, broken down by calendar year. 

Q7. The ethnicity, age and gender of suspects of the offences mentioned in question 1, broken down by calendar year. 

Q8. The ethnicity, age and gender of suspects of the offences mentioned in question 2, broken down by calendar year. 

Q9. The ethnicity, age and gender of suspects of the offences mentioned in question 3, broken down by calendar year.

Q10. Outcomes of the offences mentioned in 1, broken down by calendar year.

Q11. Outcomes of the offences mentioned in 2, broken down by calendar year.

Q12. Outcomes of the offences mentioned in 3, broken down by calendar year.

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 to answer Questions 3, 6, 9 and 12, it would be necessary to manually review over 150 crimes to determine whether the crime involved an attack or threat of an attack (Question 3). A further manual review would be required to determine the ethnicity, age and gender of the victim and suspect (Questions 6 and 9) and outcomes of these crimes (Question 12) 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 a response to Questions 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11, if you wish to revise and resubmit your request, omitting Questions 3, 6, 9 and 12. 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.