FOI 25-578 - Sexual Assault on SAS Premises
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-578 - Sexual Assault on SAS Premises
- Request Date
- 12 Dec 2025
- Response Date
- 09 Jan 2026
- Information Requested
1.How many sexual safety incidents took place in trust premises since 1 Jan 2020 to date?
Total
2.Please provide a breakdown of the total provided in question 1 by calendar year*
a) 2020
b) 2021
c) 2022
d) 2023
e) 2024
f) 2025 to date
3.Please provide a breakdown of the total provided in question 1 by type of sexual safety incident - e.g. a) rape, b) sexual assault etc
a) Rape
b) Sexual assault
c) Sexual harassment
d) Stalking
e) Abusive sexual remarks
f) Other
4.Please provide a breakdown of the total provided in question 1 by age of victim in the following categories: a) under 18, b) 18-64 and c) 65 and over**
a)Under 18
b) 18-64
c) 65+
5.Please provide a breakdown of the total provided in question 1 by status of the victim and perpetrator in the following categories:
- Perpetrator was a staff member and victim was staff member
- Perpetrator was a member of the public (or patient) and victim was a member of the public (or patient)
- Perpetrator was a member of the public (or patient) and victim was a staff member
- Perpetrator was a staff member and victim was a member of the public (or patient)
a)staff against staff
b)public/patient against public/patient
c)public/patient against staff
d)staff against public/patient
6.Please provide a breakdown of the total number of rapes since 1 Jan 2020 (i.e. the answer to 3.a) by the age of the rape victim in the following categories: a) under 18, b) 18-64 and c) 65 plus**
a)Under 18
b) 18-64
c) 65+
7. Does your trust have a dedicated policy to deal with sexual assault and harassment? If so please provide a copy of your trust’s written policy and if possible provide a date that the current policy was put in place.
*If your trust records this information in tax year, please provide the following yearly totals instead: 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26 to date.
**If your trust records this information in different age categories, please provide any information on age of victim available.
- Response
The Service has a range of measures in place to help protect staff. Known or reported areas where staff have previously faced violence or threatening behaviour are taken into consideration and communicated to attending crews. Scottish Ambulance Service staff are trained in managing aggression and assessing risk, enabling them to better judge when they need to wait for support from the Police or request additional service support.
Under Section 17 of FOISA, I must advise that the Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold the information in the format requested. Our incident and case recording systems do not contain a dataset that allows us to reliably identify whether an incident occurred specifically on “trust premises.” Given the variety of environments in which SAS staff work—including ambulance stations, vehicles, patient homes, public spaces, and third‑party healthcare facilities—determining whether any incident took place on “trust premises” would require complex interpretation and judgement rather than retrieval of recorded information. FOISA does not require authorities to create new information, to form opinions, or to undertake analysis beyond the recorded data.
As a result, we are unable to provide the requested totals and breakdowns in Questions 1–6.
Q7 – Please see the attached Sexual Safety Policy which was put in place on 13/02/2025
- Response Documents
