Prime Minister calls for police to prioritise petrol station drive-offs in Hertfordshire
Exclusive figures found less than 1% of reported drive-offs resulted in charges in Hertfordshire
The Prime Minister has called on police forces to prioritise petrol station drive-offs, following an exclusive investigation which found fewer than one percent of reported offences in Hertfordshire resulted in someone being charged.
Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request to Hertfordshire Constabulary found 2,481 offences were recorded between January 2025 and September 2026.
Of those, just 17 resulted in someone being charged or summonsed, while officers were unable to identify a suspect in 2,399 cases – almost 97%.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio News, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the offences needed to be taken seriously.
"I think it does need to be treated as a serious, serious crime," he said.
"It's something that I had some experience of dealing with as Mayor of Greater Manchester in my previous role, and we did focus on this issue."
Mr Burnham said more could be done through cooperation between police and petrol station operators, particularly around CCTV footage and evidence gathering.
"Certainly I would want to see an improvement in those figures," he added.
"I know it's difficult for police forces right now, lots of pressures on them, but I don't think we want to get to a place where crime of that nature is seen as easy."
Asked whether the figures suggested people were effectively getting away with theft, the Prime Minister acknowledged why motorists might think that, but highlighted the challenges facing investigators.
"To be fair to the police, it's often the case that they don't necessarily have the images or whatever they need," he said.
"It can be hard to investigate if the basic identification of the car and everything else is not there."
He added: "There are reasons why the figures may be not as high as they should be, but it is an issue and it's one that I would ask police forces to prioritise, within everything else."
In response to our findings, Hertfordshire Constabulary said it remained "fully committed to investigating and detecting theft of fuel offences.
“Criminals who steal fuel are often engaged in other criminal activity and it is therefore essential that fuel companies work with us and robust processes are in place to allow proportionate investigations that are in the public interest, which may include reviewing CCTV, ANPR cameras and linked series."