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. What were the total number of cat theft crimes reported in 2020?
2. What was the outcome (charge/summons, community resolution, active investigation, evidential difficulties, no suspect identified) for each cat theft crime in 2020?
3. Please list specific cat breed types with amounts (stolen in 2020) - or 'breed Unrecorded' or 'mixed breed'?
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows with 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.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
It should be noted that, should the item type be listed as something other than "cat" (eg, a specific breed) a crime may not have been picked up.
With all the above noted I respond as follows.
1&2.
Evidential difficulties 6
Investigation complete - no suspect identified 10
Victim does not support police action 3
3.
Calico 1
Mongrel 1
Shorthair 1
Tabby 1
Unknown/not stated 15
