Vehicle theft (FOI Ref: 2175A/25)

Request 

 

I would like to request the following information regarding vehicle theft in your police force area. Please provide the following, broken down by calendar year for the last three full calendar years (2022, 2023 and 2024). Please also provide information from and 2025 to-date up until 31/09/2025). If data is not available up until then, please specify when the 2025 data runs until.

1 - The total number of recorded incidents of theft of a motor vehicle in your area
2 - The total number of arrests made where the principal offence recorded was theft of motor vehicle
3 - The top three locations (for example towns, districts, or wards) in your force area with the highest number of recorded motor vehicle thefts each year
4 - Of the vehicles reported stolen (theft of motor vehicle), how many were subsequently recovered, broken down by year if available
If any of the above data is only available in financial years (rather than calendar years), please make this clear and provide the information in that format instead. 

 

Response 

 

Please find enclosed our response. 

 

1 - The total number of recorded incidents of theft of a motor vehicle in your area

Offence Title	Jan-22 to Dec-22	Jan-23 to Dec-23	Jan-24 to Dec-24	Jan-25 to Sep-25	Total
Aggravated vehicle taking	179	132	167	126	604
Aggravated vehicle taking (driving/being carried) offences, causing damage to vehicle and/or property under £5000	100	110	105	77	392
Attempted - Aggravated vehicle taking	0	0	0	1	1
Attempted - Theft of a motor vehicle	176	251	277	552	1,256
Theft of a motor vehicle	13,591	13,789	12,862	8,752	48,994
Unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle (does not include 'driving or being carried knowing motor vehicle has been taken ')	740	727	668	517	2,652
Total	14,786	15,009	14,079	10,025	53,899

 

 

 

2 - The total number of arrests made where the principal offence recorded was theft of motor vehicle

Offence Title	Jan-22 to Dec-22	Jan-23 to Dec-23	Jan-24 to Dec-24	Jan-25 to Sep-25	Total
Aggravated vehicle taking	37	37	40	30	144
Aggravated vehicle taking (driving/being carried) offences, causing damage to vehicle and/or property under £5000	19	25	32	15	91
Attempted - Theft of a motor vehicle	10	16	17	20	63
Theft of a motor vehicle	696	833	794	415	2,738
Unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle (does not include 'driving or being carried knowing motor vehicle has been taken ')	88	111	109	57	365
Total	850	1,022	992	537	3,401

 

 

3 - The top three locations (for example towns, districts, or wards) in your force area with the highest number of recorded motor vehicle thefts each year

LPA	Jan-22 to Dec-22
Birmingham	5,867
Sandwell	1,916
Walsall	1,787

 

Neighbourhood	Jan-22 to Dec-22
Harborne	233
Bournville	193
Selly Oak	187

 

LPA	Jan-23 to Dec-23
Birmingham	5,960
Sandwell	1,832
Walsall	1,622

 

 

Neighbourhood	Jan-23 to Dec-23
Sparkbrook	226
South Yardley	216
Small Heath	186

 

LPA	Jan-24 to Dec-24
Birmingham	5,756
Sandwell	1,586
Walsall	1,527

 

Neighbourhood	Jan-24 to Dec-24
South Yardley	197
Sparkbrook	192
St Matthew's	184

 

LPA	Jan-25 to Sep-25
Birmingham	4,110
Sandwell	1,222
Walsall	1,127

 

Neighbourhood	Jan-25 to Sep-25
South Yardley	147
Edgbaston	140
Shard End	136

 

 

4 - Of the vehicles reported stolen (theft of motor vehicle), how many were subsequently recovered, broken down by year if available

Year	Number
Jan-22 to Dec-22	878
Jan-23 to Dec-23	951
Jan-24 to Dec-24	1,042
Jan-25 to Sep-25	907
Total	3,778

 

 

 

 

 

We understand the frustration and distress that this crime causes.

We look to act on information we receive to arrest suspects as soon as possible,

Vehicle crime has fallen by nearly 15% in the last year which equates to over 4,000 fewer crimes.

 

Please note that this data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently, statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area. 

 

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 taken into account 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 taken into account 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.