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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-259-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 27th February 2024 as follows:
Q1. How many reports of mobile phone theft have you received in your area in 2023?
Q2. How many reports of mobile phone theft have you received in your area in the following years? Please provide a figure for each year
Q3. How many reports of mobile phone robbery (i.e. a mobile phone snatched from a person) have you received in your council area in the following years? Please provide a figure for each year
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no offence of ‘theft of mobile phone’ and no way of readily identifying from the Crime Recording System where this has occurred in relation to an offence. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the MO Description / Incident Summary of an investigation, these are limited free text fields and do not contain all information in relation to an investigation. Therefore, in order to determine the information requested, it would be necessary to manually review each and every offence of theft, burglary, and robbery recorded during the specified periods. I can advise that an analyst has conducted a search for all offences, recorded just for a 12 month period, where a mobile phone could feasibly have be reported stolen, and this returned over 9,400 crimes. At a conservative estimate of 2 minutes per record to review and collate this information, this would equate to approximately 60 hours of work, and this figure would likely apply to each year of the specified period.
Therefore, searches would exceed the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is up to 18 hours of work on one request.
In accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for your request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance; however, due to the volume of records that would need to be individually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB