FOI 464/25 Reports of Picking Plants

Enquiry Reference: FOI 464-25                                                                                

I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request.  Below is your request and our response.

Please provide the relevant information for the period between 1 April 2022 and the most recent date for which data is available.  

Please could you provide the following: 

1. The number of reports made to your force about foraging or picking of plants. Please could you      provide the following breakdown: 

1. A yearly breakdown of the number of reports made about foraging or picking of plants. 
2. The approximate location (for example: name of the park or road) at which the foraging or picking of plants allegedly took place. 
3. Whether the report of foraging or picking of plants led to a charge. 
4. The names of the offences under which these charges were made.
5. The number of these charges which proceeded to conviction. 

If you need to carry out a key terms search to locate these records, please include the terms “foraged”, “foraging”, “wild food”, “forager”, “wild ingredients”. If you would document these cases in another way, please include these results as per the spirit of my request.

Having made enquiries within the Force our answer on this occasion is no information held, there is no crime for foraging/picking plants and the keyword search is a nil return.

The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.

If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The Freedom of Information Code of Practice (see below link) states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced. Public authorities are not obliged to accept internal reviews after this date.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-code-of-practice

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Decision Maker