01/FOI/26/007806/U - Legal correspondence

Request:

I request the following information.

For the period 1 January 2022 to the date this request is processed:

Has your force received any correspondence, legal letters, pre-action protocol letters, threatened legal claims, judicial review correspondence, complaints from solicitors, or other formal legal representations from:

Alliance Defending Freedom UK (ADF UK)

Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF International)

Lawyers, solicitors or counsel acting on behalf of either organisation

relating to:

abortion clinic "buffer zones" or safe access zones;

public spaces protection orders restricting activity around abortion facilities;

alleged silent prayer incidents;

offers of conversation, support or assistance near abortion facilities; or

the policing of protests, vigils or other activity connected with abortion services.

If yes, please provide:

the date(s) of the correspondence;

the name of the organisation or legal representative sending it;

a brief description of the matter;

whether the matter related to a specific individual; and

the outcome (for example: no action taken, complaint resolved, policy review, settlement, court proceedings, judicial review, ongoing matter, etc.).

Please provide copies of:

correspondence received from ADF UK, ADF International, or legal representatives acting on their behalf – including any original legal letters sent to the force

correspondence sent by the force in response;

legal letters before claim;

internal briefing notes prepared in response to such correspondence;

records of meetings or communications between the force and ADF UK/ADF International concerning these matters; and

any final outcome letters, settlement agreements (with personal information redacted as necessary), court judgments, or formal decisions arising from such matters.

Please provide the number of cases, incidents, complaints, legal claims or threatened claims involving ADF UK or ADF International concerning the subjects listed above.

Response:

It has been determined that to establish if any information is held with regards to your request would exceed the appropriate time limit of 18 hours. Therefore Section 12(2) of the Act applies.

Due to the way the information is held in our systems we are unable to search or filter specifically on names or titles of organisations or groups. To determine if any information is held would require a manual check of each case, as this is almost 9 thousand cases it would far exceed the appropriate limit.

Section 12(2) – Exemption where cost of confirming if information is held, would in itself exceed costs.

s1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ (18 – hours).

Activities that may be counted within our time estimations are:

• Determining if the information is held;
• Retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
• Extracting the information from a document containing it.

Please take this as a refusal notice in accordance with section 17(5) of the Act which states; A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.

Ordinarily under our section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance, we would advise you how to refine your request to a more manageable level. However, due to the difficulties outlined above, I cannot see how this can be achieved in this case.

Please note that police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide information and statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force’s response to your questions should not be used for the comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.