Prosecutions for use of drone(s) to commit crime: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01861
Date received: 9 July 2018
Date responded: 26 July 2018

Information requested

1. How many prosecutions took place in 2017 for the use of a drone to commit a criminal offence? These are crimes that would typically be prosecuted using the Air Navigation Order legislation.

2. How many prosecutions took place in 2017 in total of all crimes? (This is just to derive a percentage of drone prosecutions versus all other crime).

Response

Information from the Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is published on a financial year basis and relates to proceedings that have concluded in Scottish courts. The latest available data is for 2016-17, information for 2017-18 will be available in early 2019 following publication of our statistical bulletin 'Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2017-18'. The following answers are provided accordingly:

1) Our records show there were no prosecutions under sections 94, 95 or 241 of The Air Navigation Order 2016 during 2016-17.

2) The number of total prosecutions of all crimes is available from table 4a of the 'Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2016-17' bulletin which can be found on the SG website:

https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/PubCriminalProceedings   Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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