Corrosive substance attacks in 2025

Your request details
I would like to request the following data on corrosive offences for the period from 1st January 2025
to 31st December 2025 inclusive.
1. The number of offences that were recorded as physical corrosive substance/fluid attacks against the person.
2. The number of threats of corrosive substance/fluid attacks against the person.
3. The age and gender of victims of the said offences mentioned in 1 and 2.
4. The age and gender of suspects of the said offences mentioned in 1 and 2.
5. Outcomes of physical corrosive substance attacks against the person.
6. Outcomes of threats of corrosive substance attacks against the person.

Response
Regarding Question 3, 4 & 5

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(s) apply to the disclosure of the information:

Exemption applied - Section 40(2) Personal Information
This is an absolute exemption and therefore a Public Interest Test is not relevant.

Reasons for applying exemption 40(2)
Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act exempts information if it constitutes the personal data of
any individual and disclosure would breach Data Protection principles. The term 'personal data' refers to
information relating to a living individual who can be identified, either directly or indirectly. This can include
obvious identifiers such as a name, or information which, when combined with other data, could enable an
individual to be identified.
Due to the request relating to physical corrosive substance/fluid attacks and the low numbers involved,
disclosure of age and gender of victims and suspects and the outcome breakdown, could potentially lead to
the identification of individuals. This would constitute a breach of the data protection principles and is
therefore exempt under Section 40(2).

I am, however, willing to provide the following:

I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has
conducted a search of our Crime Management System - Connect which records complaints or allegations
of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as 'crimes'. All our systems are
designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They
provided me with the following explanation regarding their search criteria:

Criteria used:
Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2025 and 31/12/2025, SYP & crime only filter, HO Group Name
is equal to / is in VIOLENCE AGAINST THE PERSON, Keyword Desc is equal to / is in Corrosive Based
Offences, MO Desc 2 is equal to / is in Corrosive Substance
&
Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2025 and 31/12/2025, SYP & crime only filter, HO Group Name
is equal to / is in VIOLENCE AGAINST THE PERSON, Person Role is equal to / is in VICTIM, Desc is
equal to / is in Corrosive Based Offences, MO Desc 2 is equal to / is in Corrosive Substance
&
Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2025 and 31/12/2025, SYP & crime only filter, HO Group Name
is equal to / is in VIOLENCE AGAINST THE PERSON, Person Role is equal to SUSPECT, SUSPECT
(INSUFFICIENT TO PROCEED), SUSPECT (INTERVIEWED), SUSPECT (NO ACTION) EVIDENTIAL
DIFF., SUSPECT (NO ACTION) TIME LIMIT EXPIRED, SUSPECT (NOT INTERVIEWED), SUSPECT
(PROSECUTION PREVENTED), SUSPECT PRE ATHENA, Keyword Desc is equal to / is in Corrosive
Based Offences, MO Desc 2 is equal to / is in Corrosive Substance

Please note:
• A manual review has been conducted and below is the data that has been retrieved.
• Extracted on 06/03/2026. Data from CONNECT crime only. This is a live recording system and may be subject to change.
• It's worth noting that some fields used are not mandatory and require manual input.
• Note there is also an MO Desc for ‘Noxious Substance’ which could potentially include some ‘liquid attacks’ however this has not been included due to the likelihood of irrelevant offences being included.
• Outcomes:
South Yorkshire Police consider investigation outcomes with the utmost importance to understand the effectiveness of our activity in relation to victim wishes and criminal justice delivery.
Certain data fields within the Force's crime reporting system are not mandatory, therefore we do not recommend the use of suspect level outcome to be the most effective way of measuring crime outcomes.
Internal testing has shown that using the outcome of the investigation to be the most accurate way of reporting and presenting this data. This aligns to the data that is reported to the Home Office for purposes of national comparison.

Question 1

Question 2 

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Quesiton 5

Below is a list of outcomes that the 14 reports fit into, any further breakdown is exempt by the Section 40(2) Personal Information exemtion. 

Question 6

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