FOI 675-2025 / Jul 2025 / Burglaries
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-675-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 2nd July 2025 as follows:
Please can you provide data on the number of household burglaries over the past six years (2019-2025) where the thieves were specifically targeting gold jewellery. Please include a breakdown of the ethnicity of every victim.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific offence for theft of gold jewellery, or indeed any jewellery, and no flag or marker to identify where this has occurred in relation to an offence. In order to determine what information is held in relation to your request it would be necessary to review the wider investigation papers in relation to every Residential Burglary recorded during the stated period to ascertain whether there is any mention of the thieves specifically targeting gold jewellery or whether only gold jewellery was taken. I can advise that we are already aware that for the period 2020 to 2024 alone there was a total of 6960 such offences recorded and at a conservative estimate of 5 minutes per record, this would equate to 580 hours of work for this period alone; however, given that your request asks for 2019 and 2025 also, this would be considerably greater. Therefore, such searches would greatly 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 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this 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, which 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