A nine-year-old boy is the youngest car thief in Northamptonshire, an investigation by the Evening Telegraph has revealed.

The newspaper has also reported that the youngest person caught with cannabis in the county was just ten, after obtaining police figures under the Freedom of Information Act.

Reporter Oliver Jelley submitted FOI requests to Northamptonshire Police asking for details of the youngest person to be caught or investigated for taking a motor vehicle without consent in the county, and of the youngest person to be caught or investigated for possessing illegal drugs and dealing illegal drugs.

He then took his findings to local community groups for young people as well as getting comments from the police, before they were reported in two resulting front-page scoops.

Oliver said the figures were the result of two of a number of FOI requests he had submitted to various authorities, and in this case they had been simple but effective.

He said: “I was thinking about what information could be interesting which is not freely available and I suddenly thought it would be a good idea to find out about the youngest perpetrators of crime.

“It was simple but it came up with some good results. I got a nice suprise with the nine-year-old who was the youngest car thief.”

The figures revealed that the nine-year-old had been caught stealing a vehicle on two occasions in the past year, and police had also investigated a ten-year-old for taking a car without consent.

Oliver found the youngest person caught with cannabis in Northamptonshire was ten and a 12-year-old was the county’s youngest suspected drug dealer.

His investigation also revealed that in the past three years 19 pupils have been reported to police for possession of cannabis and four were found with more serious drugs.

Five schoolchildren were reported for drug dealing in schools.

Oliver said the FOI Act was a useful tool, but he had had two earlier unrelated requests turned down which he had found “frustrating”.