FOI 19486-25 Domestic Energy Theft

Request to Northamptonshire Police

Question 1 - How many domestic energy theft incidents were reported to your force in 2022, 2023, and 2024? Please provide separate figures for each individual year.

Question 2 - What was the estimated total monetary value of these thefts in each year separately?

Question 3 - How many domestic energy theft cases resulted in arrests in 2022, in 2023, and in 2024? Please provide the number for each year individually.

Question 4 - How many domestic energy theft cases resulted in prosecutions in 2022, in 2023, and in 2024? Please provide the number for each year individually.

Question 5 - What was the estimated total amount of stolen energy (in kWh) across all domestic theft cases where this data was recorded? Please provide separate totals for 2022, for 2023, and for 2024.

Please note: For all questions, I require data separated by individual calendar year (2022, 2023, 2024), not combined or aggregated totals.

Response

Question 1

Domestic energy thefts reported to Northamptonshire Police broken down into years: -
2022 - 21
2023 - 13
2024 - 5

Question 2

The estimated monetary value of thefts discussed above – No Information Held.

Question 3

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

When refusing to provide such information, because the information is exempt, Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police to provide the applicant with a notice which:

(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

I can advise that the requested information is held; however, the information is not suitable for disclosure in the requested format.

The exemption applicable in this case is Section 40(2) Personal Information

Section 40 is an absolute class-based exemption, which does not require evidence of the harm disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test. That being said, where Section 40(2) is engaged, in order to make the exemption absolute there needs to be evidence that a Data Protection Principle would be breached by disclosure.

This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information relates to personal data of a third party or could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with any other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, due to extremely low numbers, providing the requested arrest breakdown by year is likely to lead to the identification of an individual. Such a disclosure would breach individuals’ rights under the Data Protection Act 2018, in particular Article 5(1) of the GDPR which states that personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.

This letter serves as a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for the requested arrest breakdown.

Question 4

Northamptonshire Police cannot provide information relating to prosecutions – please redirect this part of your enquiry to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service.

Question 5

Estimated total amount of energy stolen in kWh - No Information Held.

The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data. The figures provided are therefore our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when the data is used.

If you decide to write an article or use the enclosed data, we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.