Corrosive substance/fluid attacks

Response

Avon and Somerset Police holds information on the subject of your request. However, we cannot provide a response without exceeding the appropriate cost limit. This is because the information is not recorded in a way that allows automated retrieval. Extensive manual searches of our files would therefore be required to complete your request. 

Our systems do not have a specific crime category or data field for ‘threat of corrosive substance/fluid attack’. Such offences could fall under one various categories such as the list below, but not limited just to them:  

• Malicious Communication  

• Causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress  

• Fear of provocation of violence  

• Threaten a person with an offensive weapon/substance in a public or private place  

However, these categories also include offences outside the scope of your request. Providing an accurate response would therefore require a manual review of all occurrences within these categories. For the requested time period, more than 17,000 such occurrences have been identified. We estimate that completing this review would take significantly more than 18 hours. 

Section 12 of the Act allows public authorities to refuse requests where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit. For police authorities, this limit is £450 or 18 staff hours. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2.5 working days determining whether the department holds the information and locating, retrieving, and extracting it. 

  

This letter represents a Refusal Notice under the Act. 

 

If you would like to refine your request, we may be able to supply you with some information that may be of use. For example, we would be able to provide information relating to specific offences by Home Office offence code or classification, subject to consideration of any further exemptions such as Section 40 Personal Information.