FOI 0064-2025/26- Foraging incidents

Request:

I would like to submit a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) regarding foraging or picking of plants. Please provide the relevant information for the period between 1 April 2022 and the most recent date for which data is available. 

Please could you provide the following:

Q1. The number of reports made to your force about foraging or picking of plants. Please could you provide the following breakdown:

a. A yearly breakdown of the number of reports made about foraging or picking of plants.

b. The approximate location (for example: name of the park or road) at which the foraging or picking of plants allegedly took place.

c. Whether the report of foraging or picking of plants led to a charge.

d. The names of the offences under which these charges were made.

e. The number of these charges which proceeded to conviction.

If you need to carry out a key terms search to locate these records, please include the terms “foraged”, “foraging”, “wild food”, “forager”, “wild ingredients”. If you would document these cases in another way, please include these results as per the spirit of my request

Response:

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 the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police. 

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the following information to you.

Q1. A search using the requested keywords within the MO remarks between 01 April 2022 to 25 April 2025, has provided a zero result.

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.