Dangerous dogs (FOI Ref: 01/FOI/26/001206/E)

FOI Request Reference: 01/FOI/26/001206/E

Thank you for your request for information, received 19/10/2026

Request

All offences recorded by West Midlands Police under Home Office classification code 8/21, also written 008/21, owner or person in charge allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England or Wales, whether or not a public place, injuring any person or assistance dog, contrary to section 3(1) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 as amended by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

Seven complete financial years, April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2026.

1. The total number of offences recorded under code 8/21 in each of those seven financial years.
2. The same totals broken down by local authority district, Community Safety Partnership area or Basic Command Unit, whichever your force holds as standard, for each of those financial years.
3. The same totals broken down by victim age band for each of those financial years, using whatever standard age bands your force applies. If age band data is not readily retrievable, a split between victims aged under 18 and victims aged 18 and over would be sufficient.

Response

Please find enclosed our response.

dog-publication-statistics-2020---2025.pdf

The above publication maybe of interest to you. This data goes back to 2020 because it has been created and published year on year.  Currently, due to a change in computer systems any searches in recorded crime can only go back to April 2022.

We have answered your specific questions below because the publication above is in calendar years and you wanted financial years.  We have only provided data from Apr 2022.

1. The total number of offences recorded under code 8/21 in each of those seven financial years.

2. The same totals broken down by local authority district, Community Safety Partnership area or Basic Command Unit, whichever your force holds as standard, for each of those financial years.

3. The same totals broken down by victim age band for each of those financial years, using whatever standard age bands your force applies. If age band data is not readily retrievable, a split between victims aged under 18 and victims aged 18 and over would be sufficient.

Please note:

Not all records have a victim attached, and of those that do, some may have multiple victims recorded. Additionally, an individual victim may be recorded as the victim across various distinct crime records.

The data provided in covers every instance of a victim being recorded (not just each distinct person once), and the age that was recorded for them at time of offence recording.

Date that data was extracted = 27/10/2026

The counts for total number of records are based on the date the crime was recorded. That is to say, the record was created within one of the four available stipulated financial years.

This may or may not correspond to the date in which the offence occurred and should not be considered representative of this as a result.

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. Consequently, 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.