Bilking - 1565/21

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. How many petrol station drive-offs (often referred to as fuel theft, bilking, or making off without payment from a petrol station) have been reported to the force each month for the last two years?
2. How many of these drive-offs have resulted in a conviction?

 

After we sought clarity on your time frame you replied ‘most recent 24 months for which data is available’  and that the request related to theft of fuel only

In Response:

I am able to disclose the located information to you with all the below noted.

• Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete.  However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes.  The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.  As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
• The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
• Data has been taken from relevant databases under the HO code 053/25 Making Off Without Payment where the location was a garage, service station, petrol station or forecourt and them each return checked to identify crimes where fuel has been stolen.
• The date range used was 1 November 2019 through 31 October 2021 to provide a full 24 months.

 

1.

Month	Count
Nov 2019	94
Dec 2019	61
Jan 2020	39
Feb 2020	31
Mar 2020	34
Apr 2020	25
May 2020	23
Jun 2020	15
Jul 2020	22
Aug 2020	49
Sep 2020	43
Oct 2020	52
Nov 2020	44
Dec 2020	41
Jan 2021	40
Feb 2021	39
Mar 2021	23
Apr 2021	33
May 2021	24
Jun 2021	40
Jul 2021	36
Aug 2021	59
Sep 2021	32
Oct 2021	34
Nov 2021	47

 

2. So far 14 convictions have been recorded, however it should be noted that as you have asked for the most recent data, some cases will not yet have been processed through the court systems.