1) How many items have been recorded as missing from property stores at police stations in your area. My definition of a property store is a store room where goods seized from criminals are kept in storage.
Could the information please be provided from January 2009 to the present day (or as near as possible to the present day). Could each item which has gone missing please be detailed (i.e what the item is), the date it was recorded as missing, and the location of the store room where the item was being kept.

Your request has now been considered and having carried out the relevant research and liaised with the departments concerned, I can confirm that I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested. The straightforward answer to your question is that information in relation to the number of items missing from our property stores is not recorded/held and as there is no requirement under the act to create information if it doesn't already exist, I am unable to comply with your request.

Even if an exercise were to be undertaken in an attempt to capture this information, a "stock take" of every property location would have to be carried out in order to answer the question even in the most general of terms. A definition would have to be agreed in relation to the meaning of "missing", ie, Lost, misplaced at the time, not returned to the store etc. In addition to this, items that are "seized from criminals" are not stored separately from any other type of evidence, unless it is the criminals' own personal property and then it remains within the relevant Custody Unit. Another complication is whether or not a count should also be conducted of property seized (and identified as lost) where persons arrested are not yet convicted of any offence.
Even if there were a requirement to carry out such an exercise under the legislation, the cost of doing so would be prohibitive, attracting and engaging the Fees Limit under Section 12 of the act.

In accordance with the Act, this letter represents a Refusal Notice to comply with your request.