Fake witnesses vs. CCTV footage

Buddug_2

Don't know if anyone can give any guidance here, but is there a standard practice in the industry that says witness statements take precedence over CCTV footage?

I was in accident last year that wasn't my fault - very long story which I won't go into here, but both me and the other driver were insured with the same insurance company. Although no witnesses came forward at the time of the accident, I had CCTV footage which I sent to the insurers.

After viewing the footage, the insurer agreed it showed the other driver to be at fault. However, when they contacted him, he said he could get witnesses - months later I finally got a letter from the insurers who said they now had 3 'independent' witness statements which all stated I had caused the accident. I had told the insurers several times that no witnesses had actually come forward at the time - and queried where these witnesses had come from/their credibility.

Has anyone else been in this situation, or can give advice on why the insurer accepted questionable witness statements in preference to CCTV footage?

dacouch

The Insurer use the court of law test, which is basically if the case went to a court of law which side would the judge award to. The chances are he would disregard the cctv and unfortunately take the independant witnesses statements as true.

Honest John the Motor Agony Aunt in the Telegraph always recommends in these cases where you do not trust the witnesses to take out a County Court Case against the other drivers. His arguement is that if the witnesses are lying that it is possible they will not want to in a court as they are committing purjery. I can see his arguement but cannot say for sure whether or not it would work and whether you would win the case.

Sorry I can't be of more help

LadyIndecisive

It's essential you ensure your insurers have done full checks to see if they can locate a link between the witnesses and any parties in the third party vehicle. Do you know if they done this?

Have your insurers sought to interview the witnesses themselves?

Phantom witnesses are fairly common.

sarahg1969

Has your insurer actually told you that they are going to settle the third party claim on the basis of this witness evidence?

If so, you really need to press home that you do not accept liability and insist that the matter be investigated further. There is no reason why the CCTV footage cannot be used as evidence in a civil case. If these people were not there at the time (and hopefully the footage will confirm this also), then they MUST have something to do with the third party. Otherwise, how would they know who to contact, so late in the day? Have your insurers questioned why the witnesses' details were not put forward earlier? I suspect that the other driver didn't realise that CCTV evidence would be obtained, and thought he could get away with blaming you.

SolicitorMidlands

Witness evidence can be used but CCTV is on the same sort of "level" so to speak.

I would tell your insurers you do not want this claim paid out at all and that you suspect the witnesses to be fraudulent. They have access to databases where they can search addresses of all the witnesses, work places etc and see whether there is any link between them all.

Have I understood your post correctly - you and Defendant are insured by the same company? This is very difficult - there is a clear conflict of interest. How can they advise on issuing proceedings when they will be suing their own insured?! You ideally want this passed to solicitors.

Buddug_2

Yes, both of us were insured with the same insurance company. The insurers have advised they are settling the claim against me. I have since sent a complaint to the Ombudsman.

I haven't gone into great detail on this, because it's so long-winded. To give a few brief details, there was no apparent damage to the other driver's vehicle (due to it being a 4WD tank with steel bars on the back, which did the damage to my car). My car needed a new bonnet, radiator, grille and number plate.

Why I think the insurer have settled against me is because on the day of the accident, Budget my broker told me my car was illegal to drive as I couldn't open the bonnet. They put me straight on to Drive Assist to arrange a replacement vehicle. My policy included a free courtesy car, so I assumed (wrongly) that I was covered - and in any event I was confident that the claim would be settled against the other driver as he was reversing onto the road - so the costs would be covered either way. On the day of the accident I did not know he was insured by the same company - indeed getting any information out of him other than a mobile number was hard work as he didn't want to go through insurance anyway.

Prior to settling the claim against me, my insurer sent me a letter saying they felt a 50/50 settlement was the best they could do for me, and that this was their final decision. It was several days later that I received another letter from them stating that the 'other' insurer would not accept 50/50, and the claim would therefore be settled against me. My view is that they were going to go 50/50, and then someone dug out the outstanding invoice for the car hire. As this was not covered under my policy they would only have to pay all or part of this if they accepted the other party was at fault, either completely or partially. By settling against me, they have saved themselves £600 in car hire costs.