FOI 1140/26
REQUEST
- The number of recorded crimes committed at pharmacies, for 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026.
- For each of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026, a breakdown of those crimes by offence type (e.g. theft/shoplifting, burglary, robbery, criminal damage, arson, possession of weapons, sexual offences, vehicle offences, assault, public order offences).
- For each of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026, the number of those crimes classified as violent crime.
- For each of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026, the number of crimes at pharmacies specifically involving theft of, or attempted theft of, controlled drugs or damage to controlled drugs storage (e.g. CD cabinets).
- For each of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026, a breakdown of weapons or objects used in crimes committed at pharmacies.
- For each of 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 1 January 2026 to 17 September 2026, the outcome of crimes committed at pharmacies, broken down by: no suspect identified, no further action, caution given, charged, other outcome.
Definitions used in this request:
* "Pharmacy" means community/retail pharmacies only (please exclude hospital pharmacies).
* "Crime" means recorded crime under Home Office Crime Recording Rules, not calls for service or incidents that were not recorded as crimes.
* "Violent crime" means offences your force classifies under Violence Against the Person.
Note on searching: If premises type (e.g. "pharmacy") is not a distinct searchable field in your crime recording system, please state this and explain the method used to identify relevant records (e.g. free-text/address search on terms such as "pharmacy", "chemist", named pharmacy chains).
Address searches I'd like checked would be "pharmacy", "pharmacies", "chemist", "chemists" if the premises type of "pharmacy" is not a distinct searchable field in your systems.
RESPONSE
Your request for information has now been considered, and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Wales Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
In relation to your request, the following exemption applies:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
An address search has been completed using our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) for all crime occurrences recorded between 1st January 2022 and 17th September 2026 where the key words; *pharmacy*, *pharmacies*. *chemist*, *chemists* were in the ‘Premises Name’ field of the occurrence address. This search retrieved 2780 occurrences.
The data you have requested for questions 4 and 5, is not routinely collated in a format that would easily answer your query, therefore to accurately answer your request each occurrence would need to be individually interrogated.
We therefore estimate it would take over 18 hours to retrieve the information.
It is estimated that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In the case of the police service, the appropriate limit is £450 which has been calculated to equate to a total of 18 hours of work.
If any part of the request exceeds the fees limit then Section 12 applies to the whole request.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a refusal notice.
Excess cost removes the forces obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, however under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, an authority is required to offer an applicant the opportunity to redefine their request within the cost limit. If you were to remove questions 4 and 5, then we may be able to assist with your request.