FOI 1252-2024/25 Making Off Without Payment

Request
Q1. How many reports of making off without payment (MOWP) has your force recorded between January 2020 and January 2025? Please break this information down by month and calendar year. 

Q2. My understanding is your force may log when a MOWP offence specifically occurs at a petrol station/forecourt. Therefore, over the same period, how many reports has your force recorded relating to people driving off from petrol filling stations without attempting to pay, colloquially known as ‘drive offs’, or driving off without paying for fuel? Please also break this information down on a month-by month and year-by-year basis. If the following addition would not cause this request to exceed the 18-hour time limit, please include a breakdown of how many of these instances related to the theft of petrol, and how many to diesel, each year. 

Q3. Over the same period, please provide, if possible, the recorded value of the fuel taken in drive-offs, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year.

Q4. Please provide a resolution/clear-up report on drive-off offences over the same five years – EG numbers of summons, community resolutions, undetected etc, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year. 

Q5. Please inform me, if possible, the names of the five petrol stations that reported the most drive-off offences for each of the five years in question, including details of the value of fuel taken from each station each year, broken down year by year. 

If reviewing five years’ worth of data to would exceed the 18-hour time limit for completing FOI requests, please provide this information for the past three years (IE January 2022 to January 2025). If this is also too onerous, please provide this information for Jan 2023 to Jan 2025; and if this is too onerous, please data from Jan 2024 to Jan 2025, broken down month-by-month.

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.

I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.  

Decision
I have today decided to disclose the following information to you.

Q1. Please see the table below showing the number of crimes of making off without payment in the period 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2025, broken down by calendar month.

Q2. Please see the table below showing the number of crimes of making off without payment from petrol filling stations in the period 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2025, broken down by calendar month.

Q3. Please see the table below showing the value of fuel taken, in the period 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2025, broken down by month. Please note that this data is not mandatorily recorded and therefore relies on an officer populating the relevant field. However, where this is recorded this has been provided below.

Q4. Please see the table below showing the crime outcomes in the period 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2025, broken down by year. I am exempting the monthly breakdown of these outcomes pursuant to Section 40(2) Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). This is to refrain from particular incidents becoming identifiable and consequently the personal details of any persons involved being disclosed. Please see the below exemption explanation.

Q5. Please see below table showing the 5 petrol filling stations, according to ‘Address Premises Name’ with the highest recorded number of making off without payment offences in the period 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2024, broken down by year, together with the total value of fuel taken.

Exemption Explanation

Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you 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. 

Section 40(2) – Personal Information
Where an individual can be identified by such data, releasing it would clearly breach the first data protection principle of being ‘fair’ to the data subject.

Section 40(2) is an absolute class based exemption, which does not require a public interest test, but requires the balancing of the legitimate interests of the public against the interests of the individual under the first Data Protection Principle; in that processing of personal data must be lawful and fair (DPA 2018 35(1), EUGDPR Article 5(1)).

This exemption applies because the right given under the FOI Act to request official information held by public authorities does not apply to the personal data of third parties where disclosure of that information would not be fair to the individual, and where there is no legitimate public interest in disclosure.

In all the circumstances of the case it has been determined that the duty to the individual under the Data Protection Act 2018 & EU General Data Protection Regulations, and the public interest in maintaining the exemption from disclosure of personal information held by the force in such instances, outweighs the public interest in disclosure.  In this instance, personal information can only be disclosed to the individual concerned. 

Releasing personal details to a person other than the data subject would not only breach the data subject’s Data Protection rights it may also breach the obligations placed on an authority under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a refusal notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to your request.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.