Sex Convictions Warrington

How many convictions for sex offences have taken place in the Warrington area over the last four years.

Can this be broken down into a figure for 2007 to 2008; 2008 to 2009; 2009 to 2010 and 2010 to September 2011.

If possible, can the response include the nature of each offence.

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 basis for the calculation is the cost of extracting the data from other data. Conviction data is held on the Police National Computer (PNC). The data is held under individual names and the PNC cannot be searched for statistical data such as you are seeking. The only method would be to identify each person subject to offences of the nature you describe. Each persons entry on the PNC would then have to be examined to extract any data relevant. This is a manual process that would probably take one person several weeks to achieve based on an estimate of 1000 person records.

This would clearly exceed the appropriate limit and your request is 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 am unable to offer you a realistic alternative at this time to achieve the level of information you are seeking.