Received: 24 January 2020

I would like to know the incidents of death of police officers whilst under investigation (and for up to a year after the investigation finished) for misconduct. Both natural and suicide.

Time Period 01/01/2010 to 01/01/2020

I wish for transparency to be provided to the families who believe their loved ones died as a result of the stress caused by the investigation.

If this is not recorded I would like to know why?

Responded: 10 February 2020

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) can confirm that we may hold part of the information you require; however, Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 states that we are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it is estimated that the cost would exceed the appropriate limit.

Guidance on this exemption can be found at the Information Commissioner’s Office website: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf.

Across the 10-year time period specified there have been 13,736 misconduct matters recorded.  In order to ascertain if we hold records of death of any individual, we would need to review each claim separately, there is no automated recording of this data.  We estimate that it would take in excess of 95 days to examine, review and record the information.  Therefore, the cost of complying with this request will exceed the cost and time limits specified.

The PFEW fund the representation of its members in many duty related matters.  It is likely that the information you are seeking would be held by each Force within their Professional Standards Department as they are responsible for each investigation.