FOI 324-2025 / Mar 2025 / Defibrillators
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 324-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 14th March 2025 as follows:
I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding incidents of defibrillator theft within the jurisdiction of Warwickshire.
Please provide the following information for each calendar year from March 28 2023 to the present:
The number of reported cases of defibrillator theft.
The number of defibrillators stolen in these incidents (if available).
Any relevant statistics on arrests, charges, or convictions related to these thefts (if available).
If it is possible to break this data down by district, area, or location within your jurisdiction, that would be appreciated.
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 relative to theft of a defibrillator, and no flag or marker to identify where this has occurred in relation to a theft 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. In order to determine such information it would be necessary to individually examine investigations of all relevant theft offences, recorded during the stated time period. This would take an inordinate amount of time and 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 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.
In accordance with s12 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, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
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