FOI 28169
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: HRC0028169/26
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 28th August 2026. Please find below the response to your request:
please provide the following information for each calendar year from 2022 to 2025, inclusive.
For theft-related offences recorded by your force, including burglary and robbery, please provide:
- The number of offences involving theft of watches, jewellery, handbags or artwork, broken down by item category
- A breakdown by postcode area. If unavailable, please provide a breakdown by local authority or borough
- The number of stolen items subsequently recovered in each category, where recorded
- The number of these offences in which stolen property was recovered, where recorded
- The total estimated value of the stolen property, where recorded
Reply
Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.
S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
The information you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format as the property fields on our crime management system are not mandatory. A keyword search of the incident summary fields was completed, however, the use of keywords can be restrictive: if the brand of watch or the specific name of an item of jewellery was included in the incident summary but not the keyword then, those offences would not be returned (ie ‘Rolex stolen’ compared to ‘Rolex watch stolen’). Unfortunately, this search returned 2,481 unique offences. Therefore, in order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 18 hours as each record would have to be checked individually to manually review the incident summaries to eliminate false positives.
In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.
Under s.16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of records that would need to be reviewed I am unable to identify information that could be supplied within the fees limit.