New crime data focussed on three neighbouring market towns has revealed that one of them has been a consistent fuel theft hotspot over a five-year period.
A Freedom of Information request made by this newspaper has shown Beccles had more fuel stolen from its filling stations than Bungay and Halesworth combined between 2019 and 2023.
Between 2019 and 2023 there were a total of 61 fuel thefts in Beccles.
The figures show 57 of the 61 thefts were from filling stations, with two fuel thefts from a boat, one fuel theft from a construction site and one fuel theft from a police/fire station.
Across the same period, there were only five fuel thefts reported to Suffolk police from filling stations in Halesworth, and just one in Bungay.
In both Bungay and Halesworth, the only fuel thefts reported to Suffolk police were from filling stations.
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The data shows 2019 saw 12 petrol thefts from filling stations in Beccles, in 2020 there were 4, in in 2021 there were 11, in 2022 there were 16 and last year there were 14.
Both 2019 and 2020 saw zero fuel thefts from filling stations in Halesworth, in 2021 there were three, in 2022 there was one and in 2023 there was one.
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Bungay's only fuel theft from a petrol station occurred in 2019.
In 2020 and 2022 there was one fuel theft from a boat in Beccles between 2019 and 2023.
The town in 2023 had one fuel theft from either an ambulance/fire station/police station and one fuel theft from a construction site in the same year between the timeframe.
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The FOI did not specify which fuel stations were targeted.
'NATIONAL FUEL THEFTS ON THE RISE'
National figures gathered by the RAC Foundation show there were 39,563 incidents between July and September in 2023 - a 77pc rise from 22,335 over the same period last year.
That is also a fourfold increase from 8,558 incidents in those three months in 2019.
Drivers convicted of making off without payment, which is an offence under the Theft Act 1978, face a maximum penalty of two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.
The British Oil Security Syndicate - which campaigns to reduce crime on forecourts - estimates these incidents cost filling stations an average of £10,500 each per year.
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