FOI/2093 - Dog Attacks
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your email received on the 19 December 2025 in which you provided clarification in relation to a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request, and we provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. We can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
We are able to disclose the located information to you as follows, with the below caveats to be noted:
• The data provided is correct to 28 December 2025.
• In relation to the query at point 2, searches were conducted on all offences identified at point 1 where ‘XL’ was mentioned within the Modus Operandi (MO). As with any keyword search, the search will only return exact matches within the Crime MO. This does not account for any other differences in terminology and/or spelling used. Also, if the keyword is not used within the MO the crime will not be identified. The MO search is limited to the first 242 characters of the MO, any information beyond that cannot be searched.
You asked:
In relation to the offence of owner or person in charge allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in any place (including private property) where it injures a person or an assistance dog (code 08/21):
1. How many injuries from dog attacks of any breed have there been in your police force area in the calendar year of 2025?
Total = 1059.
2. How many injuries from dog attacks from XL bullies have there been in your police force area in the calendar year of 2025?
Of those offences identified at point 1, searches identified 21 as involving an XL Bully (please see caveat, above).