Theft of van / parcels (1806A/23)
Request
Q1) How many delivery vans / couriers had parcels stolen or attempted to be stolen for each month of 2022? (Please breakdown per month)
Q2) How many delivery vans or courier vehicles were stolen or attempted to be stolen for each month of 2022? (Please breakdown per month)
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. Please see enclosed. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fee’s regulations for the remainder of the request.
Q1: How many delivery vans / couriers had parcels stolen or attempted to be stolen for each month of 2022? (Please breakdown per month)
Please note that the closest we have is theft of mail and attempted theft of mail. There is no specific offence for theft of parcel. However, of the offences detailed below (which could be a letter (envelope), a keyword search for the word “parcel” has been completed. (See second table)
| Month/Year | Theft of Mail | Attempted – Theft of Mail | Total |
| Jan-22 | 33 | 1 | 34 |
| Feb-22 | 41 | 0 | 41 |
| Mar-22 | 28 | 0 | 28 |
| Apr-22 | 19 | 0 | 19 |
| May-22 | 38 | 0 | 38 |
| Jun-22 | 29 | 0 | 29 |
| Jul-22 | 27 | 0 | 27 |
| Aug-22 | 44 | 0 | 44 |
| Sep-22 | 44 | 0 | 44 |
| Oct-22 | 57 | 0 | 57 |
| Nov-22 | 46 | 0 | 46 |
| Dec-22 | 76 | 0 | 76 |
| Total | 482 | 1 | 483 |
Below is the data from the above table which has the keyword “parcel” within the incident notes.
| Month/Year | Theft of Mail | Total |
| Jan-22 | 1 | 1 |
| Dec-22 | 4 | 4 |
| Total | 5 | 5 |
Keyword searches are notoriously unreliable, the reasons why searches using this method are not reliable include (but are not limited to) the following: –
- a) Searches rely on the keywords being spelt correctly with no grammatical errors
- b) Searches rely on the keywords actually being mentioned in the summary description of the record – if they are mentioned anywhere else within the record but not in the summary, then they will not feature in any results
Q2: How many delivery vans or courier vehicles were stolen or attempted to be stolen for each month of 2022? (Please breakdown per month)
Information not held in a retrievable format. The theft of a van / vehicle would be:
“Theft of motor vehicle”
We do not categorise those thefts that are vans / delivery vehicles in a searchable format. It is important to also note that many people who carry out courier work are now self-employed. Therefore, the vehicles would be their own and not identifiable as a delivery vehicle from a specific company.
There are 14,518 records for Theft of Motor Vehicle, for the time period requested and a manual search of each incident summary would be required to establish the circumstances of the offence.
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