Police Raids

I. How many police raids requiring forced entry to domestic dwellings occurred in your force area for each year?

2. How much money your force paid in compensation for damage to property during police raids on domestic dwellings?

3. The total number of raids which resulted in compensation for each year?

4. And if possible, the single largest payout for each year and what it was for?

5. If more detailed information is collected (for example: replacing a front door, plastering a wall, etc) and it will not take longer than the maximum time allowance, could you also break down what the other payouts were for?

6. Could you clarify whether your force pay compensation if the raid in question leads to a successful conviction of the dwelling occupant/s.

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

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 base for this assessment is the cost of locating and retrieving the information relating to your question 1, raids requiring forced entry. There is no centralised recording of this information. Any such information would be included in individual case files. Such files are likely to be numerous even when considering the more common type of 'raids', i.e. under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Firearms Act , the Theft Act and so on. It would take many hours to read through every crime file to identify the information your seeking, probably as long as three or four months in fact to go back four years. This will clearly 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 from previous questions relating just to compensation that up to September 2009 the Cheshire Constabulary had not paid out any such claims.