April 09, 2025 | Incident and Crime Statistics , Harassment and Stalking
Request Number: FOI/14014
Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Harassment and Stalking
Subject: Stalking and harassment statistics
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 and this will be further explained below. PSNI have 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:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Request Details
Following the introduction of stalking and harassment legislation in April 2022 please can you confirm
Request 1
The number of arrests for alleged stalking since the legislation was introduced to date, split per year.
Request 2
The number of people charged with a stalking offence since the introduction of the legislation to date, split per year.
Request 3
If known the number of successful prosecutions.
Request 4
The number of arrests for alleged harassment since the legislation was introduced to date, split per year.
Request 5
The number of people charged with a harassment offence since the introduction of the legislation to date, split per year.
Clarification Sought
- Re your Q4/Q5 are you asking for figures since the introduction of the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, or since the introduction of the stalking legislation?
- Can you also confirm if you are interested in only the offence of harassment (Articles 3 and 4) or also the offence of causing another to fear violence (Article 6)?
Clarification Received
- Regarding Q4/5 looking for data since the introduction of stalking legislation.
- Would be interested to see data for both offences under the legislation.
Request 6
If known the number of successful prosecutions.
Request 7
I understand that since October 2023 the PSNI has been able to issue Stalking Protection Orders. Please can you confirm:
The number of applications received for Stalking Protection Orders since October 2023 to date, split by year.
Request 8
I understand that since October 2023 the PSNI has been able to issue Stalking Protection Orders. Please can you confirm:
The number of Stalking Protection Orders issued since October 2023 to date, split by year.
Answer
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.
Whilst the information you seek in Request 7 is held by the PSNI, it is not held in a format that would allow its retrieval without manual intervention. PSNI is not saying it does not hold the data that you request, however to extract the data you have sought in your request would require a manual trawl of PSNI’s records – hence putting the request grossly over the 18 hour cost limit set out under the FOIA
Not all Stalking Prevention Orders were registered on our case management system prior to November 2024. The decision was taken to record all SPOs from November 2024 following an upgrade to the system.
Previous to this, queries regarding Stalking Protection Orders would have come into an email box and allocated to a Legal Adviser. To retrieve the data you seek, in Request 7, we would have to manually trawl through all emails received prior to November 2024. There were 430 emails received October 2023 until the end of the year and 1671 emails between 1st January and 31st October 2024. At a conservative estimate of 1 minute to review each email, it would take in excess of 35 hours to retrieve the data sought in Request 7 alone. Thus, to respond to this entire request would exceed the 18 hour legislative cost limit.
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.
We can provide a response to the following within the appropriate limit:
- The number of arrests and resulting charges for stalking offences since the introduction of the legislation (Protection from Stalking Act (Northern Ireland) 2022).
- The number of persons arrested and processed through custody for at least one offence of harassment/causing another to fear violence, and the number subsequently charged with at least one offence of harassment/causing another to fear violence.
Please note:
Prosecution data falls within the remit of the Public Prosecution Service Northern Ireland, while conviction data is provided by Department of Justice NI. A report on the Operation of the Protection from Stalking Act NI 2022 is published on the Department of Justice website (https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/publications/report-operation-protection-stalking-act-ni-2022) and should be considered an appropriate source of stalking prosecutions and convictions since the start of the legislation. The report covers stalking legislation only - the Public Prosecution Service would be able to provide the most accurate figures for harassment prosecutions and the Department of Justice NI for harassment convictions.
Additionally, Stalking Protection Orders are orders granted by the Courts, and not PSNI – although we do have obligations in response to breaches of said orders. We suggest that you contact the NICTS (Courts Service) directly for accurate figures for Stalking Protection Orders which have been granted.
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.