Recorded common assaults of an emergency worker, charges and proceedings: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02906  
Date received: 11 October 2018  
Date responded: 7 November 2018

 

Information requested

 

1. The number of charges were brought under sections 1(1) and 2(1) of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 in each of the last five financial years, how many of those were proceeded with and how many were dropped.
2. The number of police recorded common assaults of an emergency worker in each of the last five financial years.

 

Response

 

1. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The number of charges brought and subsequently dropped is not held in our Criminal Proceedings database and we would suggest that you may wish to contact the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) at foi@copfs.gsi.gov.uk who may be able to help you. 

Information on people prosecuted is available from the additional dataset on offences against emergency workers which is published alongside our Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistical bulletin and is available from the SG website: https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/DatasetsCrimProc/CP1617EWA. 

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. 

2. The available information is provided in the following table. It should be noted these figures will not include all police recorded attacks on emergency workers (for example should an emergency worker be the victim of a serious assault, this would be recorded as a serious assault).

Number of Common assault of an emergency worker offences recorded by the police, 2013-14 to 2017-18

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Common assault of an emergency worker	6,813	6,480	6,414	6,509	7,004

Information on specific offences is available through the statistics collected centrally on crimes and offences recorded by the police and on those proceeded against in court. The statistics dealing with recorded crime and court proceedings are however not directly comparable for a number of reasons. A single crime or offence recorded by the police may have more than one perpetrator, or alternatively, an individual may be convicted of several cases of the same crime. There is the possibility that the crime or offence recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings, while a crime or offence may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings not concluded until a later year. Crimes and offences alleged to have been committed by children under 16 years old are also generally dealt with through the children’s hearings system rather than through the courts.

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