The number of people running off without paying for stuff increased by 75% in Kirklees last year.

An analysis of open crime data by The Examiner has revealed an alarming rise in ‘making off without payment’ crimes across the country.

The number of making off without payment offences recorded by police in Kirklees reached 781 in 2015-16, more than two every day.

It’s mainly thefts of fuel from petrol stations but could also include people leaving restaurants without paying or feeling from taxis.

This figure is 75% higher than the 446 recorded in 2014-15 and is 77% higher than the average number of these crimes recorded in each of the previous four years.

Calderdale saw an even bigger increase last year with numbers more than doubling from 245 to 509. This was the fourth largest increase across England and Wales.

Across the West Yorkshire Police region as a whole there was a 49% increase in these crimes last year from 2,987 in 2014-15 to 4,451 in 2015-16.

Only four other forces in England and Wales saw a bigger rise last year.

Calderdale has the highest rate of people doing a runner without paying for something out of the local authorities looked after by West Yorkshire Police with 24.4 offences per 10,000 people.

Across the whole of England and Wales there were 64,576 occasions in 2015-16 where police forces recorded a making off without payment offence.

This is an increase of 8.6% compared with the 59,474 offences in 2014-15 and is 15.8% higher than the average for the four previous years.

South Bucks in Buckinghamshire has the highest rate of people running off without paying for stuff for any area of England and Wales with 337 offences at a rate of 48.8 per 10,000 people. Nationally the average rate was 11.2 per 10,000 people.

Inspector Tom Harrison from West Yorkshire Police said; “The increase in the number of offences of making off without payment is as a result of a change in recording practices which puts victims as the focus and has their crime reports recorded at the earliest opportunity. This results in a better service with victims reassured that their calls are responded to quickly and effectively.

“Thefts of fuel from petrol station forecourts account for the vast majority of these offences and continue to be a challenging area for policing. Detecting offences of this kind is reliant upon, in most cases, good quality CCTV to identify the offender or the registration number of the vehicle to identify the owner of the vehicle. If either of these are not available, in most cases, there are very few additional lines of enquiry.

“In recent years we have seen advancements in technology, both with high definition CCTV cameras at forecourts and also police cars being fitted with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology to assist the officers in tracing vehicles and their owners.”

Area // Making off without paying offences 2015-16 (Annual % change)

Calderdale // 509 (108%)

Kirklees // 781 (75%)

Leeds // 1,531 (41%)

Bradford // 1,084 (38%)

Wakefield // 546 (30%)