Incidents in places of worship
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/25/003519/F
Version Date: 20/08/2025
The Performance Analysis Department has provided the following information.
Data Source:
Crime information system – Niche
Incident reporting system – Storm
Data Processing:
Q1 – Storm searched for incidents where the “Building” location contained one of the following words: Church, Synagogue, Temple, Mosque, Monastery.
Q3 – pulled through crimes based on incidents identified in Q1.
- The number of police incidents recorded at religious buildings or places of worship in each of the past three calendar years (2022–2024 and 2025 so far).
|
Year |
Incident Count |
|
2022 |
45 |
|
2023 |
41 |
|
2024 |
35 |
|
2025 |
14 |
|
Grand Total |
135 |
- The number of incidents at heritage or listed buildings, for the same period.
This information is not held. There is no flag or marker for ‘listed’ or ‘heritage’ building and it is not possible to identify such buildings.
- Where recorded, a breakdown of the type of incident (e.g. theft, arson, trespassing, vandalism, hate crime, protest-related disturbance, etc.).
|
Year/Offence |
Incident Count |
|
2022 |
45 |
|
Criminal damage Other |
1 |
|
Intimidate a witness / juror (recordable) |
1 |
|
Public Order - S4a Causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress |
1 |
|
Rape of a Female aged 16 or over (Sec 1 SOA 2003) |
1 |
|
Theft from a motor vehicle (recordable) |
1 |
|
Theft from shops and stalls (Shoplifting) |
1 |
|
Theft other |
1 |
|
Non crime |
38 |
|
2023 |
41 |
|
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (Section 47) |
1 |
|
Cause administer poison / noxious thing with intent to injure / aggrieve / annoy (recordable) |
1 |
|
Common assault (S39) and assault without injury (Class 105A) |
1 |
|
Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling |
1 |
|
Theft from a motor vehicle (recordable) |
2 |
|
Theft other |
1 |
|
Non crime |
34 |
|
2024 |
35 |
|
Arson (recordable) |
1 |
|
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (Section 47) |
1 |
|
Burglary - Business and Community |
1 |
|
Racially / religiously aggravated criminal damage (recordable) |
1 |
|
Theft from a motor vehicle (recordable) |
1 |
|
Theft other |
2 |
|
Non crime |
28 |
|
2025 |
14 |
|
Public Order - S4a Causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress |
1 |
|
Non crime |
13 |
|
Grand Total |
135 |
- Any data or notes indicating whether the incident occurred in the context of civil unrest, riots or public disorder.
Zero, the 135 incidents identified were manually reviewed for relevance and none were found to have occurred in the context of civil unrest, riots or public disorder.