FOI 0145-2025/26- Intruder in schools

Request:

Q1a) How many times have you responded to a malicious threat or intruder at a school where they have had to do a full lockdown in the years (from January-January):  2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.

b) Can you give a breakdown to the nature of the incident in reference to question 1a

Q2a) How many people aged 0 to 16-years-old have been found in possession of a knife or bladed articles in school and have been arrested for the following years (from January-January):  2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.

b) Can you give a break down by age and sex in reference to question 2a

Q3a) How many people aged 0 to 16-years-old have been charged for possession of a knife or bladed article at a school for the following years (from January-January):  2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.

b) Can you give a break down by age and sex in reference to question 3a

Q4a) How many violent assaults have you attended in schools for the following years (from January-January):  2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.

b) Can you give a break down by age and sex in reference to question

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 every assault crime where the MO location is a school for the timeframe requested and where threats were made, to establish if the school in fact imposed a lockdown. A further manual review would be needed to ascertain if the crimes recorded related to an intruder on school property, which would mean reading through extensive case files for each report recorded, 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). However, we may be able to provide some information for part2, 3 and 4 of your request if you resubmit and omit part 1. 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.