Possession of Cocaine

1.How many arrests did Cheshire Police make for possession of cocaine between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010?

2. How many charges did Cheshire Police make for possession of cocaine between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

3. How many arrests did Cheshire Police make for possession of cocaine with intent to supply between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010?

4. How many charges did Cheshire Police make for possession of cocaine with intent to supply between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

5. How many arrests did Cheshire Police make for importing cocaine with intent to supply between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010?

6. How many charges did Cheshire Police make for importing cocaine with intent to supply between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010? How many of these resulted in a conviction?

7. How many people tested positive for cocaine after being arrested by Cheshire Police between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010?

8. How many cases of violence relating to cocaine did Cheshire Police deal with between:

· 1st January 2009 through to, and including, 31st December 2009?

· 1st January 2010 through to, and including, 31st December 2010?

9. How old was the youngest person to be arrested by Cheshire Police for possession of cocaine between 1st January and 31st December 2009? How old was the eldest?

10. How old was the youngest person to be charged by Cheshire Police for possession of cocaine between 1st January and 31st December 2009? How old was the eldest?

11. How old was the youngest person to test positive for cocaine between 1st January and 31st December 2009? How old was the eldest?

Please note I have numbered your questions for ease of reference.

From our preliminary assessment, we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The reason for this is in relation to your questions 2, 4 & 6. To obtain this data would require a manual examination of over 650 records and cross referencing them with other records held on the Police National Computer. This it is estimated would take just under five days or approximately £875. In addition question 8 would take a similar amount of time to manually examine each case file for mention of violence whilst under the influence of a drug.

This therefore would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.

Rather than refuse your request I have provided information to answer those questions that can be answered within the cost limits and indicated where we do not hold the information requested as follows:

Data relates to both primary and secondary reasons for arrest. A person may be arrested for drink driving primarily (primary arrest) and then subsequently be found to be in possession of cocaine during search. They then would have a secondary arrest on the same record for possession (secondary arrest).

Question 1. 

 Question 2: Unable to provide within cost limits.Question 3:

Question 4: Unable to provide within cost limits.

Question 5:  This information is not held. There is no specific offence code for importing cocaine, only for importing Class A.

Question 6 Unable to provide within cost limits.

Question 7: There is no information held.

Question 8: Unable to provide within cost limits. (although its unlikely that this will be held)

Questions 9 & 10:  Youngest was 16 years old and the eldest was 54 years old for both questions.

Question 11: This information is not held.

I am unable to offer a realistic alternative or refinement to your question 2, 4, 6 & 8.

Please note also: Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive