FOI 523-2025 / May 2025 / Car thefts
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 523-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 12th May 2025 as follows:
How many keyless car thefts or 'relay thefts' have been recorded in each of the last five years, 2020/2021/2022/2023/2024.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is no way of readily identifying from the Crime Recording System whether theft of a vehicle was keyless. 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 examine each and every Theft of a Motor Vehicle offence, recorded during the stated period, on an individual basis. This would take an inordinate amount of time and the work involved in locating, retrieving and recording the information requested exceeds the cost threshold (£450), which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request and if one question exceeds the limit then this applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in refining your request where possible. However, due to the amount of records involved it is not possible to suggest a way to revise this element of your request into one which could allow searches to be conducted 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