Police across the UK are continuing to effectively ignore drive-offs from petrol stations, leaving forecourt operators to “police themselves” as they turn to private firms to enforce the law.
Referencing a Freedom of Information request undertaken by Forecourt Trader last year, The Times interviewed independent forecourt operator Guy White, who runs The Laurels service station in Lincolnshire, and told the paper: “We are protecting our own sites,” adding that he relies on Vars Technology’s ANPR and debt-recovery services to be “our policemen”.
The latest data from Forecourt Eye, which also offers technology-based forecourt security services, indicates rising fuel prices have led to a 23% increase in no-means-of-payment incidents and drive-offs.
Fellow indie Goran Raven, of Ravens Budgens in Essex, told The Times he loses around £20,000 a year to fuel thieves, but feels police see drive-offs as “a petty, minor, nothing crime”, and that “criminals know it”, so see stealing fuel as “low risk”, while many perpetrators are “career criminals”.
He added that his site stopped reporting drive-offs to police “some time ago”, explaining: “You can be on hold for 20 or 30 minutes and then the call handler will wrongly tell you it’s a civil matter. Then you report it online and 24 hours later they’ll come back to say the case is closed. I can’t remember the last time the police came down and requested the CCTV.”
