Magnet fishing (FOI Ref 2166A/25)

Request 

1. The number of incidents, callouts, or reports involving magnet fishing per year of 2022,2023, and 2024 as well as 2025 so far.
2. The number of those incidents that involved the discovery of firearms, explosives, grenades, or suspected ordnance.
3. The number of occasions where the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) / bomb squad was called to attend a magnet fishing–related incident.
4. Where recorded, the location or local authority area of each incident.

Response  

Please find attached / enclosed our response. 

Q1. The number of incidents, callouts, or reports involving magnet fishing per year of 2022,2023, and 2024 as well as 2025 so far.

Q2. The number of those incidents that involved the discovery of firearms, explosives, grenades, or suspected ordnance.

The above ten records have firearm / ammunition recovery mentioned.

Q3. The number of occasions where the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) / bomb squad was called to attend a magnet fishing–related incident.

We do not hold this information. There is no mention of EOD/Bomb squad in the incident summaries.

Q4.Where recorded, the location or local authority area of each incident

The areas are detailed in the tables above where recorded.

Please be advised that the data is provided in PDF as this is deemed the most secure format to avoid any possibility of `hidden data` being inadvertently shared.

However, it can be converted by the user into CSV or excel. There are guidelines how to do this available on the internet.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request may be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are considered when interpreting the data.  

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of data which has relevance to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations, and this should be considered when those data are used.  

If you decide to write an article / 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.