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Theft From Churches - 1289/20

Date Responded 07 September 2020

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 incidents have been reported to your force of thefts being carried out in Churches or on church property from July 2019-to as close to present as possible?
  2. If possible please could you clarify how many of the thefts recorded relate to lead being taken from the church roof?
  3. How many incidents have been reported to your force of vandalism being carried out on Churches/church property from July 2019 to as close to present as possible?
  4. How many incidents have been reported to your force of physical/ violent assaults being carried out in Churches or on church property from July 2019 -to as close to present as possible?

Note - If it is the case that ‘church’ is not logged as a location, please do include search to contain log of ‘religious building/s’.

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, however the following caveats should be noted:

  • Please note that as 'church' is a searchable location it has been used and no other religious buildings will have been included.
  • The date range is from 01/07/2019 to 26/08/2020.
  • The MO’s have been reviewed to find those crimes that were specific to your request.
  • Criminal damage offences have been used to obtain the response to question 3.
  • Question 4 only includes assaults where physical violence has been used (threats of violence have not been included).

Bearing the above in mind please see the below:

  1. 83.
  2. 13.
  3. 70.
  4. 5.

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

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