Scottish Crime Recording Standard: Crime Recording and Counting Rules

Section H – Third Party Reporting

The definition of third party reporting is;

Any report of a crime, incident or intelligence made to the police from a partner agency, organisation or other group or person. The report must be made on behalf of a third party or parties who have not reported the crime incident or information by any other means.

Third party reports can be provided by telephone, letter, e-mail or other form of electronic communication, or in person.

In circumstances where a third party reports a crime to police and the victim refuses to engage with police to provide sufficient details to confirm the crime, no crime should be recorded, notwithstanding the need to record the details in an incident record.

However, if sufficient details are reported by an apparently reliable witness who is of the opinion that a crime has been committed, a crime will be recorded e.g. a reliable witness reports one person being assaulted by two others on a public street.

Anonymous reports of crime must be supported by corroborative evidence prior to the creation of a crime report. Where a victim's details are withheld from the police the circumstances reported will be recorded as an incident only until such times as victim details are made known.