FOI 1055/26
REQUEST
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (or, in Scotland, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002), I am requesting information relating to reports of drink spiking made to your force.
Please provide the following information for each calendar year 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, and separately for 2026 year-to-date (up to the most recent date for which data are available):
- The total number of reports/allegations of drink spiking recorded by your force in each year.
- Of those reports, the number where the recorded age of the alleged victim was between 18 and 21 inclusive(i.e. aged 18, 19, 20 or 21), broken down by year and the gender of those victims.
- Of the reports involving victims aged 18–21, the number that resulted in a crime being recorded, broken down by year.
- For all drink-spiking reports, the number that resulted in a crime being recorded, broken down by year.
- For 2026 year-to-date, please provide the equivalent figures for the period from 1 January 2026 to the latest date for which data are available.
For clarity, by “drink spiking” I mean reports/allegations that a substance was deliberately added to a person's drink without their knowledge or consent. Please include cases recorded under any relevant crime, incident, intelligence or other recording system where your force has identified the allegation as drink spiking.
If your systems distinguish between drink spiking and other forms of spiking (for example, needle spiking, food spiking or spiking via another route), please provide the drink-spiking figures separately and do not include these other forms unless they were specifically recorded as involving a drink.
If the information is held in a form that distinguishes between an allegation/report and a formally recorded crime, please provide both figures where possible.
Please provide the information in a table, using the following columns where the data are available:
|
Year |
Total drink-spiking reports |
Reports involving victims aged 18–21 |
Reports resulting in a recorded crime |
18–21 reports resulting in a recorded crime |
|
2020 |
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2021 |
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2022 |
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2023 |
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2024 |
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2025 |
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2026 YTD |
If any of the requested information is not held in exactly this format, please provide the closest equivalent information that is already held, rather than treating the request as requiring the creation of new data.
If responding to the full request would exceed the applicable cost limit, please contact me with advice on how the request could be narrowed so that the information can be provided.
Please also state:
- the date on which the relevant data were extracted;
- the recording system(s) searched;
- any relevant crime codes, incident codes or search criteria used to identify drink-spiking reports; and
- any limitations or changes in recording practices during 2020–2026 that may affect comparisons between years.
RESPONSE
Your request for information has now been considered, and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Wales Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant 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.
In relation to your request, the following exemption applies:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
A search has been conducted on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) for the following Home Office (HO) offence codes where ‘South Wales’ is recorded as the owning agency between 1st January 2020 and 25th August 2026 (the date of your request).
HO codes:
5/5: Using chloroform etc to commit indictable offence
5/10: Administering poison so as to endanger life
8/2: Administer poison with intent to injure or annoy
24/1: Administer drug to woman to obtain intercourse
88/5: Administering a substance with intent
This search retrieved 233 results.
We estimate that it would take approximately 8 – 10 minutes to individually interrogate each occurrence in order to establish their relevance, the method of spiking (for example, drink spiking, needle spiking, food spiking, etc.) and to retrieve the additional details requested.
We therefore estimate that it would take in excess of 31 hours to answer your request.
It is estimated that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In the case of the police service, the appropriate limit is £450 which has been calculated to equate to a total of 18 hours of work.
If any part of the request exceeds the fees limit then Section 12 applies to the whole request.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a refusal notice.
Excess cost removes the forces obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, however under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, an authority is required to offer an applicant the opportunity to redefine their request within the cost limit. If you were to reduce the requested time-period or if you were to ask for crimes only, we may be able to assist.