Over 65s Arrested

How many people were age 65 or over at the time of their arrest in Ellesmere Port in the last three years?
How many people were age 65 or over at the time of their arrest in Chester in the last three years?

I am particularly interested in the following details:

Whether the arrested person was male or female, and their age
What offence was the person arrested for
Whether the arrested person was charged
Whether any of the people were repeat offenders, and the extent of that offending

In accordance with section 1(1) (a) of the Act our response is provided below;

From our 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 were explained in my email earlier today but to recap. The data you have requested is contained in the custody records database. Currently the data is not retrievable electronically due to a failure of software. The only method of retrieval is to manually examine each custody record to extract the data you require. This is estimated to take on staff member one moth to achieve which would exceed the appropriate limit.

Your request is therefore refused.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Cheshire Constabulary, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you with a notice which a) states that fact, b) specifies the exemption in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

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.

I can say that once the software failure has been rectified out researchers will run your query to try and obtain the data you have requested. There is no need for you to reapply. If on the other hand you no longer require this data please let me know.