Witness Protection Protocol

1. Please will you tell me when your Witness Protection Protocol was last updated?

Our protocol was last updated in 2007, to fall in line with Management of Police Information (MOPI) and also to fall in line with the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCA). Of note it is now the broader heading of Protected Persons as it no longer refers purely to Witnesses, again in line with the SOCA Act.

However, our Force web site is being updated which should include (in due course) our latest policy.

2. What caused you to update your protocol at that time?

See Response to Q1 above.

3. Have you run training events for your uniformed staff on this topic since 1 January 2005 and what is the frequency of such events?

Yes, as and when required, to courses such as, Senior Investigating Officer and Honour Based Violence Officers courses.

4. Approximately, because it is not essential to have precisely accurate figures, how many of your staff have been to such events since 1 January 2005?

I am sorry but under freedom of information the requested information must be for recorded information and an approximation could only be provided if we had an approximation recorded therefore my reply must be no information held. Further to this, unfortunately it would not be possible to attempt to recover the actual figures as this would not necessarily be recorded in any easily retrievable format.

Jim Conlin

FOI Decision Maker