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:
- 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?
- 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.