The appellant submitted a request under the Act for records related to all motor vehicle collisions involving him in 2020 and 2021 and the police located responsive records for two incidents. Portions of records for the first incident were withheld under sections 38(a) (discretion to refuse requester’s own information) read with section 8(1)(l) (facilitate commission of an unlawful act) and 38(b) (personal privacy), while records for the second were excluded from the Act under section 52(2.1) (ongoing prosecution), and in the alternative were withheld under sections 38(b) and 38(a) read with sections 8(1)(l) and 15(a) (information published or available to the public). The appellant also claimed that the police did not conduct a reasonable search for records.
In this order, the adjudicator upholds the decision of the police for the first incident and upholds the search of the police as reasonable. For the second incident, he finds that that the section 52(2.1) exclusion does not apply because the prosecution had been completed during the inquiry. He finds that the records are not exempt from disclosure under section 15(a) because, while they are available to the appellant through an alternative disclosure process, they are not available to the general public. He finds that the section 38(b) exemption applies to the withheld records, with the exception of a witness statement provided by the appellant. He orders the police to disclose this witness statement to the appellant.