Please be aware we’re making some improvements and building a new website. You can still report incidents, tell us about general intelligence or talk to us on live chat on this site. Thanks for your patience.

Date Responded 09 December 2021

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.

back to top