Searching for a needle in a haystack? An exploratory study into the policing of ‘needle spiking’ in the UK

In autumn 2021 social media posts about ‘needle’ spiking - the injecting of a person with drugs without their consent – began to circulate in the UK. This research supplements media articles and official documents with new empirical data (885 incidents from 32 police forces obtained via Freedom of Information requests and five interviews with victims). The purpose of the article is to document what is known about needle spiking and to identify how this might improve policing and research on spiking in the UK.The FOI data showed that there was a peak in reported incidents in October and November 2021, that the most frequent location of the needle stick injury was the arm (followed by the leg), and that while three quarters of the incidents took place in a pub, bar or club, but that needle spiking was not exclusively a night-time economy problem. Needle spikings were rarely perpetrated as a ‘gateway crime’ to commit another criminal offence such as sexual assault, it was not restricted only to young women, and that victims faced disbelief from a number of directions including some parts of the media and police. Few drugs were identified (mamba, insulin, and cocaine) but there are acknowledged problems with forensic testing which are described, meaning that greater emphasis on other forms of evidence collection is required.We propose that greater multi-agency working is required to tackle needle-spiking as there are overlapping needs in terms of needle (and other forms) of spiking relating to health and policing. More research is needed, particularly on offender motivations to fully understand and respond to the problem of spiking.