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 dogs were seized by your force since 2018?
- Please break down the data by calendar year: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date.
2. How many dogs were destroyed by your force since 2018?
- Please break down the data by calendar year: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date.
3. How many people died after being attacked by a dog in your area since 2018?
- Please break down the data by calendar year: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date.
4. How many dog attacks did you record in your area since 2018?
- Please break down the data by calendar year: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date.
5. Since 2018, how many people have been arrested for breeding or selling a banned dog breed under the dangerous dogs act?
- Please break down the data by calendar year: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development and Operations 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 caveats noted when viewing the figures:
- For Questions 3-5, the data has been taken from Systems where the following offences have been taken into account:
- Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England or Wales (whether or not a public place) injuring any person or assistance dog,
- Breeding or breeding from a fighting dog,
- Selling, exchanging, offering, advertising or exposing for sale a fighting dog,
- Giving or offering to give a fighting dog.
- For Question 3, the victims of arrests for 'Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England or Wales (whether or not a public place) injuring any person or assistance dog' were reviewed to find the severity of the injury, none were recorded as 'fatal'.
- 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.
1.
2018 - 87
2019 - 96
2020 - 114
2021 - 111
2022 - 139
2023 to May 1st - 8
2.
2018 - 45
2019 - 26
2020 - 34
2021 - 29
2022 - 39
2023 to May 1st - 5
3. No one died as a result of a dog attack in the years requested.
4.
|
Year |
Count |
|
2018 |
395 |
|
2019 |
429 |
|
2020 |
466 |
|
2021 |
501 |
|
2022 |
564 |
|
2023 |
341 |
|
Total |
2,696 |
5. There were no arrests for breeding or selling a banned dog breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act for the period requested.
