The number of petrol and diesel thefts this year was also 77 per cent higher than last year’s figure, with 22,335 registration requests across the July to September period. This was despite the rate of detection hitting record lows, with only 18.2 per cent of offences being solved. In October, figures from the Office of National Statistics revealed that shoplifting incidents had hit a record high of 1,000 offences a day, a 25 per cent increase on the previous year. The sharp increase in fuel theft comes as retailers face big increases in shoplifting across the country. This marks an increase of 362 per cent from the same period in 2019, which saw retailers request details 8,558 times. Staff can request the details from the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) when a customer drives off without paying or cannot pay.
New research by the RAC Foundation found that between the start of July and end of September, petrol forecourt owners had requested driver registration details on 39,563 occasions.
The shoplifting epidemic hitting Britain has been mirrored on filling station forecourts – with petrol thefts up by almost 400 per cent since before the pandemic.
