FOI 786/26 Spiking Offences

Enquiry Reference:  786- 26                                                 

 

I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request, firstly please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

Your request is below with our response.

I’m researching crimes related to spiking and, under the Freedom of Information Act, would be grateful if you could provide the disclosure requested.   I understand that the offences listed are those most likely to be associated with acts of spiking, but please advise if there are others I may be unaware of and amend the list accordingly, if at all possible. 

Please note I am not seeking identifiable personal information and am happy for any necessary data to be anonymised 

If you feel this request breaches the cost and time limits as it stands, please advise me as to how best to refine my questions to achieve the disclosure I hope to receive.

I’d be grateful if you could provide the force’s response in an xlsx file. 

I’d like to know:

1. Broken down for each financial year and offence between and including April 1 2022 and July 2026, please provide the following for the offences (a) ‘Endangering life or causing harm by administering poison’; (b) ‘Administering poison with intent to injure or annoy’; (c) ‘Administering substance with intent to stupefy or overpower to engage in sexual activity’; (d) ‘Administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence’:

*Please note since April 2026, we have adopted to the National Data Quality Improvement Crime tool and will be using this for all spiking requests going forward. We can provide data from April 2026 for questions C and D but will then use a different search to answer questions A,B and E, as this will be based on the search of specific crime types. Note that the new National DQ crime tool only identifies if spiking was used, rather than the type.

1. The total number of incidents recorded

Answer:

The analyst has used the below crime classes for the above request, as they were the most appropriate for what was requested.

088/05

005/10

008/02

Crime Class	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026 (Up to July 31st)
005/10 - Administering poison so as to endanger life	4	1		2
008/02 - Administering poison with intent to injure or annoy	67	72	34	69	26
088/05 - Administering a substance with intent	8	6	1	4	1

 

1.       The total number of crimes recorded, broken down by gender and age band of victim (where recorded) and recorded offence location (where the location is held in a structured field)

Answer:

The below table is based on the location description of an MO, broken down by age group as listed on the victim age categories. Also, categorised by gender.

Victim age group, gender by Location Description	Female								Male						Unknown gender
	Under 18	18 to 29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+	Not applicable	Other	Under 18	18 to 29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+	18 to 29	Other
Commercial		1
Dwelling	7	10	12	5	6	4			5	8	2	6	5	3
Education	1			1					3
Financial										1
Hospitality - Café					1
Hospitality - Club	3	27	3	2					1	5	2				1	1
Hospitality - Hotel/motel			1
Hospitality - Public House	3	35	10	5	6				2	12	3	2	2		2
Hospitality - Restaurant		4													2
Leisure	1
Medical - Hospital			1		2						1	1
Public	6	2	4		1	1		1	7	3	2	2	1
(blank)	4	7	12	6	3		1		2	3	3	2	1
Grand Total	25	86	43	19	19	5	1	1	20	32	13	13	9	3	5	1

 

1.       If your system permits keyword searching of MO or summary fields, please provide the following, or advise if such searches cannot be conducted without manual review: the number of crimes with the words ‘spiked’, ‘spike’ or ‘spiking’ in the MO summary
2.       The number of crimes where the MO summary contains ‘needle’, ‘vape’, ‘drink’, ‘drug’ or ‘drugged’, broken down by each key word

Answer:

The below refers to how many crimes are spiking related, with a qualifier ‘SPK ’, covering question C and D:

 

Crimes with a Spiking Qualifier	Apr	May	Jun	Jul
All Other Theft Offences		1
Other Sexual Offences		1		1
Rape	2		2	6
Violence With Injury	4	7	2	3
Violence Without Injury	1
Grand Total	7	9	4	10

1.       The number of crime outcomes recorded, broken down by outcome, gender and age band of suspect (where recorded)

Answer:

We have provided the outcome status of the crimes above, using the same crime class codes. Categorised by suspect age group and gender.

Crime outcomes by age group and gender of suspect	Female						Male						Unknown
	18 to 29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+	Under 18	18 to 29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+	Under 18	Unknown
1: Charged								1
13: Named suspect but victim/key witness deceased or too ill										1
14: Victim declines/unable to support action to identify offender													46
15: Police - named suspect, victim supports but evidential difficulties	1	4	1	1		1	8	6	6	1	2	9	3
16: Victim declines/withdraws support - named suspect identified	3	3	1	2		1	14	12	7	2		4	2
18: Investigation complete no suspect identified						1							142
1A: Alternate offence charged							2
20: Other body/agency has investigation primacy								1
22: Diversionary, educational or intervention activity, not in public interest to take further action						1
New			1		1			2		1			1
Grand Total	4	7	3	3	1	4	24	22	13	5	2	13	194

 

2. Broken down for each financial year and each offence, please provide the following for the four offences referenced in question 1:
3.       The number of crimes where a forensic test was performed or sample was taken
4.       The number of crimes where forensic samples or tests were taken that were subsequently analysed
5.       The number of crimes where forensic samples or tests were taken that were not analysed and (where recorded in a searchable or reportable field), the reason category assigned to the unanalysed forensic evidence
6.       Where recorded in a searchable or reportable field, the reason category assigned to the unanalysed forensic samples a forensic sample or test was not analysed, the reason why it was not analysed

Answer:

See below

3.           If it is possible within the cost and time limits of the FOI Act, please also provide an anonymised summary of the most recent two recorded crimes for each of the offence categories listed in previous questions

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1 (1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Sec 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon s17 of FOIA requires that we provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

Having made enquiries within the Force due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record. Where relevant information is held deeper in a record a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information. In this instance where samples are taken in relation to spiking incidents – the crime recording tends to be related to the more serious offence (rape/att. Rape etc) and the sample types are generally labelled only as ‘blood ’ or ‘urine ’.   We do not distinguish samples in relation to spiking offences and have no mechanism in place to be able to determine which cases relate to spiking.  As this is not held at the case management system level to determine such detail would require a manual search through all records in the time scope to establish the requested detail.

 

The cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond and this falls under the exemption of 'Compliance exceeding the appropriate limit' covered by Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and as such this work could not be undertaken.

 

Therefore, please treat this as a refusal notice under S17(1) of the Freedom of information Act.

In accordance with Section 16 of the Act we have a duty to provide advice and assistance however on this occasion we cannot offer any suggestion on how you could refine this part of your request.

 

As a gesture of goodwill, outside of the Act we have provided you with the information above which was retrieved before the it was realised that this would take in excess of the time stipulated

 

Please note that all statistical data supplied in relation to Freedom of Information requests is a snapshot of data held at the time the request was received by the Freedom of Information office and is subject to constant change/updates.

 

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