Sexual Abuse and Harassment in Schools
Date of request: 29 March 2021
Reference: 422/21
Request
How many reports of sexual abuse or sexual harassment has the police force received from schools in each year since 2010?
If possible, please give the name of the school that reported the incident and a brief description of each of the reports e.g. male student touched female student inappropriately.
Please can you tell me what the outcome of these reports was i.e. whether the report was investigated, whether anyone was arrested or charged or received a warning.
Response
Your request has been considered and I regret to advise you that your request is refused because we estimate that the cost of retrieving the requested information would exceed the cost limits under the Act which is currently set at £450 or 18 staff hours work. This letter represents a Refusal Notice under the Act.
This is because the information requested is not centrally recorded and would involve an extensive search of our files to find and collate it. Currently our crime recording system does not centrally record location types therefore we would be required to manually review all sexual offences within the timeframe requested to establish if the location was a school.
An initial search has identified in excess of 17,000 sexual offences and at an average review time of five minutes per incident it is estimated it would take considerably longer than 18 hours to comply.
Due to the reasons set out above, I am therefore unable to assist you in refining your request to fit within the cost and time limits set out within the Freedom of Information Act.