Drink spiking prosecutions
Request
In collaboration with the Drinkaware Charity UK and Cambridgeshire Constabulary, we are researching on drink spiking topic. Therefore, on behalf of the research team, we are requesting you to provide data related to drink spiking from 2017-2022 as reported to you. Through the freedom of information request, we are asking for following information:
1. the number of drink spiking cases that were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service
2. the number of drink spiking cases that were prosecuted
3. the number of convictions that were given
Response
We have interpreted you request as with regards to prosecutions for the offence created by Section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Section 61 makes it an offence for a person (A) intentionally to administer a substance or to cause any substance to be taken by another person (B) where A knows that B does not consent to taking that substance and where A intends to stupefy or overpower B so that any person can engage in sexual activity involving B.
In response to question 1:
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not collate data within the scope of your request.
In order to answer your specific question and identify any relevant cases, a manual review of all case files received by the CPS requiring a referral for a charging decision and/or early advice for the time period specified would be required to identify and extract this information, and this would be at a prohibitive cost.
It should be noted that Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government is set at £600. This means that the appropriate limit will be exceeded if it would require more than 24 hours work in determining whether the CPS holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
As by way of assistance, in the year ending June 2022 alone, the CPS received referrals for a charging decision or early advice in respect of 199,019 suspects. We believe that the cost of manually reviewing these suspects case files (and in a narrowed time frame) to ascertain the specific information you require would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with this aspect of your request.
In response to question 2 & 3:
Please see the table below. Please refer to the caveats appended to the table when considering the disclosed data.
The table shows the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced as recorded between 1st January 2017 and 30th June 2022. I can confirm that out of those 44 cases, convictions occurred in 17 of those cases regarding the stated offence.
| Offences charged and reaching a first hearing at magistrates' courts | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Jan - June 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sexual Offences Act 2003 (s.61) | 24 | 31 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 13 |
- Offences recorded in the Management Information System Offences Universe are those which reached a hearing. There is no indication of final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.
- Data relates to the number of offences recorded in magistrates' courts, in which a prosecution commenced, as recorded on the Case Management System.
- Offences data are not held by defendant or outcome.
CPS data are available through its Case Management System (CMS) and associated Management Information System (MIS). The CPS collects data to assist in the effective management of its prosecution functions. The CPS does not collect data that constitutes official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
These data have been drawn from the CPS’s administrative IT system, which (as with any large scale recording system) is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the CPS. We are committed to improving the quality of our data and from mid-June 2015 introduced a new data assurance regime which may explain some unexpected variance in some future data sets.
The official statistics relating to crime and policing are maintained by the Home Office and the official statistics relating to sentencing, criminal court proceedings, offenders brought to justice, the courts and the judiciary are maintained by the Ministry of Justice.