Dangerous Dogs Act

Reference number: 
20100106
Request date: 
02/2010
Response date: 
19/03/2010 (All day)
Request details: 

“1.      In relation to the 2009 calendar year can you please state how many dogs your force has seized under the powers of the Dangerous Dogs Act? If possible please provide a breakdown of the breeds/types of dogs that have been seized. Also please state how many of the dogs seized in 2009 have been (a) destroyed, (b) returned to their owners or (c) still confiscated but their future has not been determined.

2.      Could you provide answers to all the above questions but in relation to dogs seized in 2008?

3.      What is the longest period of time that a dog has been housed by the police while a decision over its future has been conducted? What was the name and breed of the dog? When and where was it seized? How long was it housed by the police and when this came to an end was it returned to its owner or destroyed? What did the bill for its accommodation and associated expenses (food etc) come to?”

Exemptions Applied: 

Section 12 - Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

SYP response: 

From enquiries I have made South Yorkshire Police does not appear to keep specific, separate records in relation to the seizure of dogs classified as ‘dangerous’ under the Dangerous Dogs Act. 

A search of the Force Incident Control System revealed that a total of 1634 incidents classified as ‘vicious dog’ were recorded in 2009 alone. The entirety of these incidents cannot in any way be considered to be indicative of the number of investigations throughout the Force involving dogs classified as dangerous under the Act. 

Accordingly, your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested. Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Yorkshire 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. 

The following exemption applies to the disclosure of the information: 

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit 

In order to determine if the information is held and locate, retrieve and extract such held information it would be necessary to physically review each of the 1634 incidents mentioned above. Even if each incident took only 10 minutes to review this would result in over 270 hours. Those incidents would only provide an initial indication of whether a dog had been seized under the Act. It would then be necessary to locate further records in order to retrieve and extract the information you have requested.