The Police Force So "Inept", It Can't Provide Basic Arrest Data
Update on the FOI request sent to Kent Police over speech arrests.
After initially refusing to comply with a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted last month, Kent Police has now completed an internal review and decided its decision to block the request was justified.
For context, an internal review is a formal process where a public authority reassesses how it handled an FOI request.
The original request was simple: how many people have been arrested under the Online Safety Act since it received Royal Assent in October 2023?
One would think providing routine arrest data for a certain crime wouldn’t be too much to ask.
But the force—led by Chief Constable Tim Smith—refused, claiming the data was too difficult to extract and would exceed the statutory cost and time limits.
Quoting Section 12 of the FOI Act, Kent Police said:
“Custody (arrest) data and crime (offence) data are stored on two separate parts of the electronic recording system which cannot be linked automatically.”
The thing is, dozens of other forces—including Essex, Devon & Cornwall, South Wales, Northumbria, Merseyside, the Met, and more—had no trouble retrieving and providing this exact data when The Brief submitted identical requests in recent months.
Put simply, Kent claim they can’t retrieve basic arrest data—something that looks less like a technical barrier and more like bureaucratic laziness or outright incompetence, particularly when compared to other forces.
It also implies that Smith’s force can’t even access that same data for its own investigations—wasting time, resources, and public money on something a half-decent recording system could resolve in minutes.
This isn't exactly reassuring for Kent's 1.6 million residents, who’ve seen violent crime rates surge past the national average in the last year. Drug crime has also risen by 20.7%, as has shoplifting—rising by 7.4%.
But the most troubling part?
Their original response suggests administrators dealing with the request may not have understood the offences in question.
In its original reply, Kent Police stated:
“There are no reasons for arrest specific to offences ‘Send false communication with intent to cause harm’ and ‘Send communication threatening death or serious harm’ under sections 179 and 181 of The Online Safety Act.”
Both are criminal offences. Both have already been cited in arrests across the country.
Section 179, covering “false communications with intent to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm,” carries a maximum sentences of up to 51 weeks in prison. It’s a summary-only offence—so no jury trial.
Section 181, relating to “seriously threatening messages,” carries a maximum sentence of up to five years. Defendants are entitled to a jury trial.
The question remains: what exactly did Kent Police mean when they claimed there were “no reasons for arrest”? It’s a criminal offence. If someone’s arrested under it, it should be recorded.
This is, of course, the same force that made national headlines in May after arresting 71-year-old retired detective Julian Foulkes over a social media post.
Foulkes had replied to an activist threatening to sue then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman for calling pro-Palestinian protests “hate marches”. He posted, “one step away from storming Heathrow looking for Jewish arrivals.”
The post is understood to have referenced reports of a mob in Dagestan, Russia, which stormed an airport looking for Jewish passengers. Foulkes simply seemed to be warning the activist of what might happen if protests ramped up.
It was perfectly legal speech, and by every objective measure, there was nothing close to being racist or discriminatory. But Kent Police didn’t seem to care.
The hierarchy sent six officers—armed with batons and pepper spray—to search his home. The home of a man who had served in Kent Police for more than a decade, only to retire and see them turn against him.
Body-cam footage of the search evidenced how dystopian the ordeal was.
Officers were recorded referencing his “very Brexity things”, which included Douglas Murray’s new book: On Democracies and Death Cults—as if that was somehow an indictment of Foulkes.
Post-search, the retiree was then detained for eight hours before the force finally admitted fault and agreed to pay him £20,000 in compensation months later.
More recently, they’ve faced criticism for allegedly threatening to arrest a pro-Palestine protestor that simply waved a flag and used the term “genocide” in reference to Gaza.
If that individual was indeed peacefully protesting, and not purveying in any overt incitement to violence, it only goes to evidence the apathy Smith and his force have toward speech in general.
In April, The Times found Kent Police ranks in the top ten forces in the country for total arrests under speech-related laws—specifically, Section 127 of the Communications Act and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act.
Maybe that’s why they’re reluctant to release the data…
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Makes me livid as an injury retired "proper copper" from the 70's and 80's. These so called Chief Constables have no clue!
JJ,
There's a typo it's "Dim" not "Tim" Smith-bloomin' basic data again !