2022/25046 - Car Theft and Tracking

REQUEST

I would like to make a request to your council under the Freedom of Information Act (2000). I have detailed the request below, which relates to cars theft and tracking.

 

1. Please provide the total number of reported car thefts in 2021 reported to be taken from the following locations:

• Driveway
• Householder’s garage
• On street
• Public car park
• Private car park
• Other location

 

2. In how many instances of car theft over the past three years was the vehicle in question flagged as having an in-built or driver-installed location tracker?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

3. In how many of these cases did the presence of the tracker help in locating the whereabouts of the car following its theft?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

4. In total, how many incidences of aggravated vehicle taking were reported over the past three years?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

 

RESPONSE

1. Please provide the total number of reported car thefts in 2021 reported to be taken from the following locations:

• Driveway
• Householder’s garage
• On street
• Public car park
• Private car park
• Other location

 

There is no filter to identify the type of area the car was stolen from e.g., driveway, garage etc. so to gain an accurate idea of which location the car was stolen from, a manual trawl would need to be completed. There were 684 ‘Theft of a motor vehicle’ offences recorded in 2021. It would take 5 minutes to look through each record which would mean that this question would be exempt as it would take longer than 18 hours to complete (5 minutes per record x 684 records =3420 minutes / 60 = 57 hours).

 

To avoid this exemption, a keyword search has been completed in the crime summaries using the following terms:

• Driveway
• Garage
• Street
• Car Park

 

The results of this keyword search are as follows:

Keyword	Number of reported offences
Driveway	22
Garage	14
Street	52
Car Park	28

2. In how many instances of car theft over the past three years was the vehicle in question flagged as having an in-built or driver-installed location tracker?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

 

 

There were a total of 853 theft of a motor vehicle offences recorded in 2019 alone. As there is not a filter to identify whether the vehicle had an in-built or driver-installed tracker, a manual trawl would have to be completed through each record to get accurate figures. As it would take 5 minutes to look through each record, it would take over 71 hours to complete the manual trawl (5 minutes per record x 853 records = 4265 minutes /60 = 71+ hours). Therefore, as this is over the 18-hour limit this question is exempt on time.

 

To avoid this exemption, a keyword search has completed in the crime summaries using the following term:

• Track

 

A manual trawl was then completed on this data to identify the relevant offences.

There were 14 ‘Theft of a motor vehicle’ offences identified in which the car had an internal tracker. Please note that this is data is reliant on the word being spelt correctly and/or being included within the crime summaries.

 

3. In how many of these cases did the presence of the tracker help in locating the whereabouts of the car following its theft?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

To provide this data, a manual trawl was undertaken using the data from question 2. The data includes each instance the tracking device was used at least once after the theft had taken place. In all 14 offences, the tracker was used at least once following the theft of the vehicle. 

 

4. In total, how many incidences of aggravated vehicle taking were reported over the past three years?

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021

 

As aggravated vehicle taking is an offence and not an incident, the number of recorded offences with the term ‘aggravated vehicle taking’ in them for each year have been provided. The following offences were included in these figures:

• Aggravated vehicle taking
• Aggravated vehicle taking where the only aggravating factor is criminal damage of £5000 or under
• Aggravated vehicle taking (driving/being carried) offences causing damage to vehicle and/or other property under £5000

Year	Number of reported offences
2019	62
2020	74
2021	66