Should Met police refuse FOI request for accident charges?

Should Met police refuse FOI request for accident charges?

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CoolHands

Original Poster:

18,709 posts

196 months

Tuesday 1st September 2015
quotequote all
I submitted a FOI request to see if the driver of a car involved in an accident was facing any charges as a result of the accident. I gave specific info of date, time, reg number and driver name to help them find the specific incident. It was a public incident reported in newspapers. I then asked:

coolhands said:
Can you tell me, is the driver of the vehicle facing any charges
relating to the collision, and if so what the charge(s) are?
They have refused the FOI request because they are saying it is exempt information:

MET police said:
Section 17(4) of the Act provides:

(4) A public authority is not obliged to make a statement under subsection
(1)(c) or (3) if, or to the extent that, the statement would involve the
disclosure of information which would itself be exempt information.
The way they have answered is not very clear, and I think they are saying it is due to it being Personal Information (which is exempt information) as written later in their response (this is the exact way they have written it):

MET police said:
Section 40(5) - Personal Information/Absolute Exemption
My question to you lot is - do you think this is right? Surely any charges that are brought in regard of a criminal act are public? ie not exempt due to Personal Information. Otherwise we'd never know who was / has / is going to be charged.

What do you think?

edit

according to this https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documen... it all depends on whether the data is 'personal' as to whether it should be exempt.

ICO said:
Is the information personal data?
13. The first step is to determine whether the requested
information constitutes personal data, as defined by the DPA. If
it is not personal data, then section 40 cannot apply. While in
many cases it will be clear whether the information is personal
data, there will be other cases, particularly where individuals
are not directly referred to by name, where it is necessary to
consider the terms of the definition carefully. Information is still
personal data even if it does not refer to individuals by name,
provided that it meets the definition of personal data in the
DPA.
Final edit - if I remove the drivers name so as to make it impersonal, ie 'is the driver of vehicle XYZ facing charges as a result of an accident on ABC?' would that need to be answered do you think?

Edited by CoolHands on Tuesday 1st September 17:38

CoolHands

Original Poster:

18,709 posts

196 months

Tuesday 1st September 2015
quotequote all
tapereel said:
If the person involved is facing charges then the information you seek will be available by other means as courts are public.

It is quite right that the FoI Act has provision within it to prevent nosey-Parkers using it to get info they have no business having. You will get to know about the fate of this driver the same time the rest of the world does.
and what if that's never? If they don't charge there's no notice saying there's no charge, there's just nothing. So you'd never know. If you don't like FOI move to China.

CoolHands

Original Poster:

18,709 posts

196 months

Tuesday 1st September 2015
quotequote all
marshalla said:
tapereel said:
CoolHands said:
tapereel said:
If the person involved is facing charges then the information you seek will be available by other means as courts are public.

It is quite right that the FoI Act has provision within it to prevent nosey-Parkers using it to get info they have no business having. You will get to know about the fate of this driver the same time the rest of the world does.
and what if that's never? If they don't charge there's no notice saying there's no charge, there's just nothing. So you'd never know. If you don't like FOI move to China.
If there is no charge then they don't have any information that they can release to you.
If you want to use FoI read the Act.
And even if there is a charge, it may be a police decision which will be over-ruled by CPS at a later stage. Charging does not always lead to prosecution, and cases can be dropped during court proceedings.

Release of information about a charging decision may cause problems because of the public's "no smoke without fire" attitude and complete inability to understand how the system works - much like their inability to understand what FOI is meant to be used for and why it is different from DPA.
"If there is no charge then they don't have any information that they can release to you."

tapereel the lack (or not) of charge is not the reason the information has not been released. If you want to comment learn to read.

marshalla you seem to be talking out your hat. For you and others who like to make stuff up, here's a named person who has been charged with a crime:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34120946


Edited by CoolHands on Tuesday 1st September 23:03