THAMES Valley Police has refused to say how many times it has used spying laws to access phone records.

But the force has admitted using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) more than 50,000 times over the last decade.

Journalist trade publication the Press Gazette submitted a Freedom of Information request to Thames Valley Police and other forces asking how many times they had used RIPA to obtain the phone records of journalists or news organisations.

It comes after the Metropolitan Police used these powers against The Sun and Mail on Sunday as part of its investigation into the row surrounding former Tory whip Andrew Mitchell’s altercation with police at Downing Street.

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In its response Thames Valley Police said: “Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act allows that public authorities do not have to comply with section 1(1) of the Act if the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit.

“Information regarding whether the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act has been used to obtain information, specifically from the telephone records of journalists, news organisations or any other news organisation employees, is not held in an easily retrievable format.

“To establish this would require a manual search of every individual RIPA record (in excess of 50,000 for the timeframe specified). It is estimated that the time it would take to perform these manual searches will exceed the appropriate 18 hour time and £450 cost limit.”

Passed into law in 2000, RIPA allows public bodies to carry out surveillance to detect crime and prevent disorder. Thames Valley Police said: “As a matter of course, TVP does not record the occupation when acquiring data under RIPA.”

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