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:
Re thefts of so-called "Asian Gold". By this, we mean thefts of Asian Gold jewellery and belongings which are traditionally held in the homes of Asian families and often in relatively large amounts. We are attempting to establish the overall scale and value of such thefts across the UK.
Therefore, I would like to ask the following:
1) Could you provide us with figures for the number of Asian Gold thefts. We understand that this may not be recorded with the descriptor "Asian Gold", but we provide below, as an example, the basis upon which Greater Manchester Police responded to our request.
- Victim self-defined ethnicity is: any other Asian, Asian Bangladeshi, Asian Indian, Asian Pakistani, White and Asian, Asian or Chinese
- Victim officer-defined ethnicity is Asian, South East Asian, Chinese or Japanese
- Victim nationality is Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Japanese or Malaysian
And
- Property type is jewellery, bracelet, earrings, necklace, ring or gold
- Property description contains Asian Gold, Asian Wedding, Bangle, Indian Gold, Dowry, Wedding Set, Chinese
2) The total estimated value of Asian Gold thefts - as categorised above
for the 12 months up to and including March 2018.
3) Assuming the retrieval of the relevant data falls within the FOI request cost restrictions, could you also provide us with the same figures for the previous 4 years: i.e. the 12 months up to and including March 2017, March 2016, March 2015 and March 2014
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
In Response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
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.
To note, to extract the information request the following method has had to be used.
The ethnic origin and self-classification has been used to determine ethnicity and the MO field of all thefts and burglary crimes have been searched using the following keywords:
jewellery
bracelet
earrings
necklace
ring
gold
wedding
bangle
Indian gold
dowry
wedding set
Chinese
Stolen items that are not jewellery have been excluded where possible such as watches, computers and cash, some items of jewellery did not have a value attached and were marked 'not yet known', as they are not yet known, the value of these items cannot be included in the summary. Jewellery that is obviously modern has also been excluded (ie Vivienne Westwood for example).
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would expect that you to take into consideration the factors highlighted above so as not to mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
With all the above in mind please see the below.
Year, Count
2013/14 - 8
2014/15 - 7
2015/16 - 8
2016/17 - 19
2017/18 - 12
Year Sum
2013/14 £ 47,858.00
2014/15 £ 97,401.00
2015/16 £ 108,511.70
2016/17 £ 118,984.00
2017/18 £ 58,773.00
