Lamping

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/26/004655/L

Version Date: 04/06/2026

The Performance Analysis Department and the Dorset County LPA have provided the following information:

Data Source:

Contact information system – Storm

Crime information system – Niche

Data Processing:

Searched Storm for Keywords included in Question 2 below and closing category of ‘Animals/Wildlife’.

Searched Niche for NICL for qualifier of ‘Wildlife’ or ‘Lamping’.

Based on previous FOI responses from other forces, I understand that hunting‑related activity is often recorded under broader categories and that detailed resourcing data (e.g., policing days or officer deployments) is not centrally recorded. I have therefore limited this request to information that forces have confirmed is held in an extractable format.

I would be grateful if you could provide the following:

1. Recording Categories / Codes

Please confirm which incident categories, event types, NICL qualifiers, tags, or other classification codes your force uses to record incidents relating to any of the following:

• Trail hunting
• Hare coursing
• Any other form of hunting with hounds
• Related disorder or wildlife‑crime‑related activity

If these incidents are recorded under broader categories (e.g., Rural Crime, Wildlife, Animal, ASB Nuisance, Suspicious, Criminal Damage, etc.), please specify which categories apply.
Storm uses the category of ‘Animals/Wildlife’.

Niche uses the NICL qualifier of ‘Wildlife’ or ‘Lamping’.

2. Incident Counts (Extractable Data Only)

For each category identified in response to Question 1, please provide the number of recorded incidents in each of the past five calendar years.

If your force is able to extract incident counts using keyword searches (e.g., “hunting”, “hare coursing”, “wildlife”), please provide the results of such searches.

3. 
   
   Time Spent on Incidents (If Held in Command & Control System)
   
   If your command‑and‑control system records active time (i.e., time between call receipt and disposal), please provide the total active time for the incidents identified above for each of the past five years.
   
   If this information is not held or not extractable, please confirm this.
   
   Information not held, the system records the start time and date, and the disposal/end date only, it does not record a disposal time.
4. Named Operations (If Applicable)
   
   If your force has run any named operations relating to hunting, hare coursing, rural crime, or wildlife crime in the past five years, please provide:
   
   • The operation name
   Operation Name: Operation Galileo

Operation Name: #RuralLIVE

Operation Name: Operation Shogun

• The year(s) it ran

The operations ran during the period requested. We do not have a specific start/end date recorded.

• 
  Whether incident counts or active‑time data are held for it
  
  We dot not have a flag or qualifier for operations or any specific related incident count. We would have to do a Keyword search in the Occurrence Summary to extract related information, and this would be reliant on the officer mentioning the operation by name within the summary.