Detention and custody

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/25/7569

Version Date: 06/02/2025

The Criminal Justice and Legal Services Departments have provided the following information.

Please can you provide the following information relating to your detention and custody units.

1. Relating to the size of your detention and custody units.

number custody units in your force 

6 designated and 1 non-designated

total number of cells within all custody units

160 

number of cells within your largest custody unit

40 

number of detention officers

Currently 100 – This figure includes both Police Officers and Police Staff

2. The annual volume of custody related complaints in the last 12 months (or recent 12 month period) that required an investigation. If possible, split by the following
• Property related
• Defence related (i.e. lack of access to a solicitor, lack of provision of medication, etc.)
• Health & wellbeing related
• Other

If you do not have the above split and have an existing report on the volume of custody complaints, please provide that.

There were 24 complaints allocated to custody in 2024. These complaints may have had other elements to them such as the manner of the arrest but were allocated to custody as this would have had the most serious element of the complaint.

The breakdown of complaints is shown below

3. How much has been paid out in compensation in the last 12 months for the investigations listed in Question 2, split by the following types
• Lost property
• Defence
• Health & wellbeing
• Other

The Force have not received any civil claims in relation any of the above named categories and therefore the answer to Q3 is none.