May 15, 2025 | Incident and Crime Statistics , Knife Crime
Request Number: FOI/14544
Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Knife Crime
Subject: Crimes involving zombie style knives and machetes
Request and Answer:
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We have explained to you below that when PSNI estimates whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if certain conditions are met. In this case those conditions are met and complying with all of your requests would in our estimation exceed that appropriate limit set out in Regulation. We have explained this further below but also we followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12 (1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
Request 1
How many crimes were recorded referencing zombie knives/zombie-style knives/zombie-style machetes/zombie-style swords in the last four years? (Since 2021 – up to and including any data held for 2025)
Request 2
Of those, how many involved youths (under 18)?
Request 3
Can figures be broken down by year?
Answers
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case.The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).
When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:
• made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
• made for the same or similar information; and
• received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.
Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.
Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State. The relevant record holder has stated that by using their IT system they can search for crimes where weapons were recorded as being an element in the offence. This is done by clicking a drop down button for weapons however, there is no specific drop down option for zombie knives, zombie-style knives, zombie-style machetes or zombie-style swords. The record holder also advised that the search could also be refined to weapons recorded as instrument – knife/bladed but this search would still not be able to identify which of those offences involved the kinds of bladed weapons that you have specified.
Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State. The relevant record holder has stated that by using their IT system they can search for crimes where weapons were recorded as being an element in the offence. This is done by clicking a drop down button for weapons however, there is no specific drop down option for zombie knives, zombie-style knives, zombie-style machetes or zombie-style swords. The record holder also advised that the search could also be refined to weapons recorded as instrument – knife/bladed but this search would still not be able to identify which of those offences involved the kinds of bladed weapons that you have specified.
Therefore, the only way to retrieve your requested data would be to do a manual examination of all the records identified using the search criteria above in order to identify which ones involved a zombie style blade. Based on this approach the number of records that would require manual examination for the four year and two month period leading up to February 2025 is around 1275 and to review all of these would require 212 hours of work which would excessively breach the FOI legislative cost threshold.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed.
Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit and the only refinement that could possibly be offered is if you limit your request solely to crimes where a knife or blade was used. There would be no suitable way of refining this request that would enable us to provide you data exclusively on zombie-style blades.
Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.