Police Records
When wishing to understand the number of vehicles taken each year, I have more commonly used the DVLA’s data. However, as explained here, this will always understate the true number of thefts.
DVLA records hold a LoS (Lost or Stolen) marker against a VRM, irrespective of the crime type. It matters not how the police record the crime (taking, burglary, robbery etc.), the LoS marker is against the unique (in most cases!) VRM. The notification of the ‘taken’ status is not complicated by the crime classification, a Home Office code.
Police databases, their crime-recording software has many fields that are not mandatory, which makes cross-referencing information and analysis difficult, for example, Police Scotland.
To provide some clarity about the situation, Avon & Somerset police kindly provided some useful information in response of a Freedom of Information Act request, as follows:
Information has been provided from our crime recording database for the period 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023.
For the offence codes
28 – burglary and
34 – robbery
these do not relate solely to vehicle crime. Therefore, we have provided data where an occurrence has a vehicle listed as stolen.
However, please note that the stolen vehicle may have been used in commission of the offence, rather than being stolen as a result of the offence.
If multiple offences occur within one occurrence, the most serious offence is used to record the crime. For differences between burglary, robbery and theft there is some useful guidance here – sentencing council.
For questions 1, 3, 4
1. The number of vehicles reported stolen to your constabulary. The home office code for this offence, I understand to be 48
3. the number of vehicles stolen by burglary. The home office code for this offence, I understand to be 28
4. the number of vehicles stolen by robbery*. The home office code for this offence, I understand to be 34
In our responses (supplied), we have provided data based on the data field for recorded property, where a vehicle has been recorded under the property classification, ‘stolen’.
We are aware that the property field is not always completed, meaning the figures provided may not be an accurate reflection of the number of vehicles stolen.
It is also possible that further instances may have been recorded elsewhere, for example within the main body of a crime log.
To identify all relevant information recorded in this way would require a manual review of all occurrences recorded in the offence groups specified, which would attract a refusal under Section 12 relating to costs. Instead, we have provided the data we are able to retrieve from the relevant data field, albeit with the above caveat regarding the accuracy of this data.
Please see the table below (awaited). We have provided a count of occurrences as well as a count of vehicles.
You will see that in some instances there is a discrepancy between the figures. Where the count of vehicles is higher than the occurrences such as for offence code 28, this is because more than one vehicle can be stolen in each occurrence. For the offence code 48, the count of vehicles is lower than the count of occurrences because not all occurrences contain details of the recorded vehicle with the vehicle fields.
For question 2,
2. the number of vehicles taken by fraud reported to your constabulary. The home office code for this offence, I understand to be 53
no information is held by Avon and Somerset police.
ActionFraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber-crime. In the vast majority of cases, reports of fraud are completed via the Action
Fraud website or Action Fraud call centre. All cases of fraud, whether reported directly by the victim or referred by the Police, are recorded centrally via Action Fraud and analysed within the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) hosted by the City of London Police as the lead force. You may wish to contact [2]Action Fraud or the [3]National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.
The response to ‘2’ appears odd; has the constabulary recorded no instance of a vehicle taken by fraud? If someone satisfies a constabulary their vehicle was taken by a criminal, would this not be recorded then and there; would ActionFraud be required to receive, access and act upon the notification – add the PNC LoS marker?
- DVLA records indicate the City of London Police registered just 3 LoS markers against VRMs in 2023 and none in 2024.
- The NFIB has no separate DVLA ‘constabulary’ classification for the submission of LoS markers to the DVLA
- NaVCIS, whilst registering LoS markers, are understood to receive notifications of crime directly, from Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) members, as opposed to the public or traders who have been duped into handing over a vehicle
04/04/2025 Lincolnshire Constabulary shed further light on potential anomalies IRW/25/66 RE – Internal review (IR) request linked to FOI-25-4496:
Not all occurrences recorded under the crime tree level 4 code have a stolen vehicle recorded within the occurrence. The report we used to retrieve the data uses a filter to only extract those vehicles that have been recorded as stolen under their classification so the report does not extract all vehicles related to the occurrence – meaning we do not have to go through each occurrence and remove offending vehicles from the data, however, sometimes the vehicle recorded does not have any mention of it being the stolen vehicle within its classification and therefore is not picked up by the filter.
In addition to this, sometimes a vehicle is not recorded within the occurrence at all (data quality issue).
To ensure this is accurate would necessitate going through each occurrence making any request excess cost. In these instances, any mention of vehicle details such as make, model, recovery, etc have been outlined as “NO VEHICLE RECORDED”.
The make and model of each vehicle may be shown at varying levels of detail. This field is not mandatory and is usually filled in by officers on scene. Therefore, officers fill in the vehicle make and model how they see fit and will not always put the same level of detail.
In addition to this, an officer may sometimes not add a make or model of the vehicle, just the VRM, and in these circumstances this has been outlined as “NOT STATED”. This again is a data quality issue and to make accurate would require going through each occurrence which would make requests excess cost.
With reference to the recovery of the vehicle we go off the ‘vehicle recovery/seized date’ as to whether a vehicle has been recovered or not.
In this instance, we have taken the time and gone through each classification of the vehicles and outlined any vehicle as being recovered if it mentions anything in relation to a recovery. This means any classification that mentions the vehicle being “Found”, “Recovered” (Whether by police, third party or owners), “Abandoned”, “Burnt out”, “Searched”, “Involved in Collision”. We have deemed the vehicle as having been recovered in any condition and therefore assumed that any vehicle that was known to be abandoned/ searched/ burnt out/ involved in a collision etc must have been found/recovered. However, this is again down to officers filling this field in accurately and therefore we cannot guarantee that this includes all vehicles that were ‘recovered’.
With reference to the recovery date again this is not a mandatory field and relies on officers filling in or knowing the date of recovery. Officers may not always fill in the date of recovery nor may they even know the date of recovery if the vehicle was found or recovered by a party other than the police as this would rely on that party letting the police know the vehicle had been recovered and the date at which this occurred.
Therefore, those vehicles that had been outlined in some way as being recovered (as explained in point three above) but which have no recovery date have been outlined as “NOT STATED” within the recovery month & year column.
… with reference to the age identifier of the vehicle, the only way we can extract this is by extracting the VRM and using a formula to single out the 3rd and 4th number of the VRM. Some age identifiers may not be available or may not be in the usual format. For example, personalised number plates may not have any age identifiers at all.
Again, to make this more accurate, we would have to go through each occurrence and look at the VRM of each vehicle which would make the request excess cost.
Incomplete Records
More about LoS records, the anomalies in recording and the lack of accurate, specific information can be found here: