FOI 347-2025 / Mar 2025 / MOWP
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 347-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 21st March 2025 as follows:
- How many reports of making off without payment (MOWP) has your force recorded between January 2020 and January 2025? Please break this information down by month and calendar year.
- My understanding is your force may log when a MOWP offence specifically occurs at a petrol station/forecourt. Therefore, over the same period, how many reports has your force recorded relating to people driving off from petrol filling stations without attempting to pay, colloquially known as ‘drive offs’, or driving off without paying for fuel? Please also break this information down on a month-by month and year-by-year basis. If the following addition would not cause this request to exceed the 18-hour time limit, please include a breakdown of how many of these instances related to the theft of petrol, and how many to diesel, each year.
- Over the same period, please provide, if possible, the recorded value of the fuel taken in drive-offs, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year.
- Please provide a resolution/clear-up report on drive-off offences over the same five years – EG numbers of summons, community resolutions, undetected etc, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year.
- Please inform me, if possible, the names of the five petrol stations that reported the most drive-off offences for each of the five years in question, including details of the value of fuel taken from each station each year, broken down year by year.
If reviewing five years’ worth of data to would exceed the 18-hour time limit for completing FOI requests, please provide this information for the past three years (IE January 2022 to January 2025). If this is also too onerous, please provide this information for Jan 2023 to Jan 2025; and if this is too onerous, please data from Jan 2024 to Jan 2025, broken down month-by-month.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Q1 response:
|
Making off without payment |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
Total |
|
Jan |
53 |
22 |
40 |
29 |
42 |
14 |
200 |
|
Feb |
59 |
21 |
36 |
38 |
27 |
|
181 |
|
Mar |
61 |
27 |
44 |
29 |
37 |
|
198 |
|
Apr |
15 |
38 |
33 |
26 |
58 |
|
170 |
|
May |
23 |
37 |
45 |
45 |
62 |
|
212 |
|
Jun |
31 |
48 |
56 |
22 |
42 |
|
199 |
|
Jul |
31 |
47 |
36 |
38 |
52 |
|
204 |
|
Aug |
32 |
40 |
40 |
24 |
38 |
|
174 |
|
Sep |
33 |
38 |
54 |
27 |
43 |
|
195 |
|
Oct |
41 |
19 |
50 |
35 |
49 |
|
194 |
|
Nov |
21 |
43 |
42 |
40 |
20 |
|
166 |
|
Dec |
24 |
38 |
30 |
47 |
20 |
|
159 |
|
Grand Total |
424 |
418 |
506 |
400 |
490 |
14 |
2252 |
Q2 to Q5 response: Please be advised that the requested information is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific identifier on the Crime Recording System to determine where a MOWP offence has specifically occurred at a petrol station/forecourt and in order to retrieve information relevant to these elements of your request it would be necessary to review the 2252 offences in response to Q1 on an individual basis. Such 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. An estimate of the cost involved is set out below:
2252 offences @ 5 minutes per offence = 11260 minutes / 60 = 188 hours
In accordance s12(1) 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 in relation to your request; however, due to the volume of records which would need to be reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one which could be dealt with within the fees limit even if we were to conduct searches for a period of one year.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible. The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.
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