Knowledge is power, information is imperative. Yet despite, for example, the 2019 Vehicle Crimes Taskforce (VCT) identifying the need for better information about vehicle taking methodologies, even the ‘spearheading’ West Midlands Police can shed no light on how many (if any) vehicles reported to them as ‘stolen’ were taken by keyless methodologies*.
No information, no indication of the resource requirement, no idea whether this is the issue presented.
Indeed, as the increase in vehicle taking appears to be the result of law enforcement inactivity as opposed to manufacturer failings, possibly ‘security bypass’ or ‘electronic compromise’ is a constabulary gift; an excuse to do little or nothing, replacing the previous ‘fishing rod’ taking methodology? Criminals are the organised & professional facet of the vehicle taking environment – what are the police expected to do … other than dish out a crime number in the belief this will result in an insurer paying compensation, bringing closure to thematter?
*clearly this is a problem, but one that appears
General Lack of Data
03/2025 Warwickshire police response to a request for PNC LoS Markers Against VRMs for 2023 & 2024:
It has been determined that not all of the requested information is held in a readily retrievable format. In order to provide a response in relation to the type of vehicle stolen, whether the vehicles were recovered, if so the month of recovery and the age of the vehicle, it would be necessary to manually review each and offence relating to theft of a motor vehicle recorded in 2023 and 2024. This would involve thousands of records and; therefore, the work involved in locating, retrieving and recording the information requested would exceed 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.
The system in which the information/data is held/extracted: Athena.
04/2025 Gloucestershire Constabulary PNC LoS Markers for VRMs 2023 & 2024
I am unable to provide the data in an excel spreadsheet due to the way the data is recorded and the extraction techniques utilised by other areas of the organisation. I order to provide the data contained within the response to you much manipulation of multiple data sets was required. If you require this to be contained within an excel spreadsheet you can copy and paste the tables provided.
We originally exempted the VRM under the section 40 however on review we could potentially provide letters 3 & 4 however this would be uncorrelated data and would not be linked to the make and model. The data could also be
incomplete as the field which is populated with the VRM is a non-mandatory free text field.
The system we use is UNIFI, Gloucestershire Constabulary is not using Niche currently.
We are unable to extract data from PNC as this is a standalone system administered by a third party.
Gloucestershire Constabulary does monitor crime levels over multiple crime types, however the data utilised is high level unless a trend is identified which requires further investigation.