Electric car charging vandalism incidents 2019-present

Request

The number of electric car charging vandalism incidents since 2019, listed by
year and month, and if possible listed by public and private chargers. This
includes theft, cable cuts, and intentional damage to the electric car charging
points.

Response

We approached our Crime Management Data Returns Administrator for assistance with your request. The Connect System is used to record complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as ‘crime’.

They provided us with the following explanation of their search criteria and enclosed spreadsheet:

Criteria Used – SYP & crime only filter, Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2019 and 31/07/2024, HO Group Name is equal to / is in ARSON AND CRIMINAL DAMAGE, Property Class 3 is equal to / is in Battery Charger OR Initial MO is LIKE (pattern match) %electric vehicle charger%; %EV charger%; electric vehicle charging station%; %EV charging station%;

Please see attached spreadsheet 24.011379

Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording systems and information assets.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.