FOI 1154-2025/26- Animal welfare crimes
Request:
Please provide the following data covering the period 1st January 2007 until 31st December 2025:
Q1. The number of charges brought by your force under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 where the defendant’s recorded occupation at the time of arrest/charge was "Pest Controller," "Pest Control Technician," or "Exterminator."
Q2. A breakdown of the specific sections charged (e.g., Section 4 - Unnecessary Suffering; Section 7 - Administration of Poisons; Section 9 - Breach of Duty of Care ).
Q3. The type of animal involved (if recorded).
If a manual search of all animal welfare cases exceeds the cost limit, please prioritize a search of the "Occupation" field in your custody system for the keywords mentioned above. If occupation data is not searchable, please provide the total number of charges under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 where "poison" or "trapping" was mentioned in the case summary.
Response:
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 – Q3. A search has been carried out of crimes under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 Home Office classification codes between 1st January 2007 and 31st December 2025. The data was then filtered by the offenders’ occupation field for “pest controller” and returned no results
Please note that the occupation field is not mandatory complete. Additionally, “Pest Control Technician” or “Exterminator” are not within our occupation drop down field.
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.