Forecourt operators are all too aware that drive-offs are a perennial problem for the sector, but our investigation shone a light on the scale of the issue, while also highlighting its links to organised crime, and the depressing attitude police forces typically take towards it.
Early on in the year we submitted a series of Freedom of Information requests to the UK’s 45 territorial police forces, and by May we were ready to publish our findings: namely, that police had recorded fuel thefts worth an estimated £6.5m, yet in the vast majority of instances took no action aside from ticking a box marked “investigation complete: no suspect identified”.
We also shared intelligence from security firms working closely with the industry, which indicated organised criminal gangs were regularly involved in drive-offs.
The story gained widespread media attention, being covered by Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC broadcast news, plus newspapers including The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, and Mail Online.
We subsequently published a series of follow-up articles that highlighted seasonal and geographic drive-off trends, and detailed how just five forecourts in London were the scenes of 20% of all the capital’s incidents of fuel theft. We also used one police force as a case study because its crime recording methods were so detailed that they represented a model we considered other constabularies should follow.
We also published two comment pieces explaining how police action was vital for this entrenched problem, and what that action might look like, while our focus on how criminals are ‘cloning’ and tampering with vehicle number plates to facilitate drive-offs gained the attention of a campaigning MP, who is pushing for change in the UK’s dysfunctional number-plate system.
