Dog theft criminals rise but only two percent are convicted
The East of England had the highest percentage of dog theft suspects to be identified
The pandemic has meant a surge in puppy buying, but now concerning new research shows that dog theft is devastating 196 families every month.
And, only 2 per cent of these cases in 2020 resulted to criminal charge, according to the research gathered by The Kennel Club through Freedom of Information.
They found that in the UK there were an estimated 2,355 cases of dog theft in 2020, which is a 7 per cent increase on 2019.
However, based on the 27 police forces that provided date for dog theft case outcomes in 2020, only two per cent of all dog theft cases in the UK led to a suspect being charged.
No suspect was identified in more than half (54 per cent) of reported dog theft cases and three per cent of cases were dismissed as not being in the public interest.
In more than a quarter (27 per cent), a suspect was identified but nothing further was done due to ‘evidential difficulties’.
The statistics were revealed 79 days after the Government’s Pet Theft Taskforce was established to help tackle the issue – in which time another 508 dogs have been stolen, according to The Kennel Club’s research.
The Kennel Club wants more transparent recording of pet theft on a central database, so that underlying causes of dog theft can be tackled.
According to The Kennel Club, only one dog theft in 50 results in someone being charged.
During the 2020 lockdowns, adoption levels of dogs reached record levels but this was accompanied by a rise in dog-related crimes.
They revealed that in 98 per cent of cases a culprit is never apprehended for their crime which sees dogs taken away from their owners.
The Kennel Club is now mounting a new campaign, called “Paw and Order: Dog Theft Reform”, in which it calls for a centralised database containing information on dog thefts that can be shared by various police forces.
During the year, a suspect was most likely to be identified here, in the East of England, but further action would be stopped due to evidential difficulties. That was still only at 35% of all dog thefts.
Claire Wilson-Leary, Senior Public Affairs Officer at Dogs Trust who works across Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk said: “As the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, we know our dogs play such a huge and important part in our lives. So it’s absolutely heart breaking when their dogs are stolen from them.
“Any action to urgently tackle the issue of dog theft is a step in the right direction and we were pleased when the government set up the Pet Theft Task Force to look at this issue.
“Current sentences does very little to deter thieves and doesn’t take into consideration how devastating it can be to have your dog taken away from you. We would like the government’s Pet Theft Task Force to look at tougher sentences for dog theft to serve as a real deterrent.
“Given the higher demand of dogs in recent months and the increase in prices, unfortunately it is likely that criminals involved in puppy smuggling and dog theft are taking advantage of the situation.
“But one of the challenges is that we don’t know the true scale of the problem because reporting is quite inaccurate and is consistent across police forces. This is something we hope the government Pet Theft Task Force will look at.
“We are looking forward to hearing what next steps the government sets out with Pet Theft Task Force, and we really hope these will bring meaningful action to end the heartache endured by owners when their pets are cruelly taken away from them.”
The region that is the dog theft hotspot is the North West, with 335 dogs stolen in 2020, accounting for 14 per cent of all dog thefts.
This is followed by London, with 318, accounting for 14 per cent of all dog thefts, and the South East with 304 (13 per cent of all thefts).
The police force with the single greatest number of reported dog thefts in 2020 was the Metropolitan Police (318), followed by West Yorkshire (121), Kent (117), Lancashire (98) and Northumbria (97).
The regions in which police are least likely to identify a suspect are the North East, with no suspect in 66 per cent of cases in 2020, followed by Wales (63 per cent) and the South East (62 per cent).
The police forces least likely to identify a suspect in 2020 were Northamptonshire (77 per cent) and Dyfed Powys (70 per cent).
When a suspect was identified, charges were only brought against a suspect by three forces in 2020: the Metropolitan Police, Cheshire Constabulary and Kent Police, accounting for 9 per cent, 2 per cent and 1 per cent of all dog theft cases in those forces, respectively.
In 2020, a suspect was most likely to be identified but further action stopped due to evidential difficulties in the East Midlands (36 per cent), the East of England (35 per cent) and Yorkshire and Humber (34 per cent).