Bicycle accident help

steady__eddie

Good luck Rev, you've got a p.m.

rev_henry

Well I've had a nice letter from the police saying 'no further action' because my witness hasn't filled out the huge form they sent him and without an independent witness they can do nothing. I emailed a reply basically saying 'Would you like me to contact the witness myself and ask him? And as the 3rd party isn't denying the incident happened at all, just denying the sequence of events, I understand a lack of evidence for careless driving but why can you not prosecute him for failing to stop and failing to report the incident to the police within 24 hrs, as surely these are absolute offences? And what about the shedloads of CCTV the policeman who interviewed me said there was?'



The Policeman's rather curt response was to the effect of 'no witness, no further action, and the officer checked and it wasn't on CCTV.'
Curiously the letter gave me the 3rd party's address though! So I'm not sure what to do now - I don't really want to hassle the witness, it IS a really long form, although I think he's moved out of the area to Uni so may not have received it or something...

This doesn't affect my civil claim of course, which is still ongoing and looking like court, eventually.

pmduk

Unfortunately GMP only pursue easy cases. (Unless there's lots of PR for them)

JCP

Totally sympathise Rev.

I got knocked off 6 months ago, and whilst the police were keen to prosecute for careless driving, the CPS decided that they really couldn't be bothered. This despite multiple independent witnesses, and the driver himself saying he'd seen me and didn't know how he'd hit me.

I've decided that life is too short to focus on punishing him (in his defence, he did stop, and also wrote a letter of apology which I was less than appreciative of 2 days after the accident whilst I was hardly able to move), and instead am focussing on sorting my injuries, and have dumped the claim with the CTC lawyers who, I must say, are being excellent. On the plus side, the driver's insurance company admitted full liability last week, but I still foresee several forms and medical exams in my future.

Hope you get it squared away soon.

rev_henry

pmduk wrote: »

Unfortunately GMP only pursue easy cases. (Unless there's lots of PR for them)

I wonder if I could make some PR for them...nice letter to the MEN...hmmm.

Incidentally I'm going to be sitting on a student/police liason board type thing soon, I wonder if I could have any influence through that. (OK its pretty obvious to GMP who I am now if they care to dig a little!)

And I'm sorry but CCTV in this country is a joke. We have so much of it yet most of the time its actually needed its either too poor quality, pointing the wrong direction or just not working.

CPS is a joke as well.

Now I shall stop before I sound like the Daily Mail.

pmduk

Rumour has it GMP's Police vehicles had to be fitted with satnav before they could get to Salford during the riots earlier this year. I suspect none of their senior officers had ever been here before.

Weird_Nev

Rev:
I'd imagine that they're up against the 6month time limit for prosecution as well, which may have gavlanised their response not to take the prosecution any further. I hope the civil case pans out ok, much more likely to get satisfactory results by that path anyway.

System

rev_henry wrote: »

why can you not prosecute him for failing to stop

He did, YOU spoke to him

rev_henry wrote: »

failing to report the incident to the police within 24 hrs,

No requirement, No injuries (according to you). There is no legal requirement to report a damage only accident to the police.

rev_henry wrote: »

My bike suffered some damage, and I may be yet to discover damage to myself.

rev_henry

!!!!!! wrote: »

He did, YOU spoke to him


No requirement, No injuries (according to you). There is no legal requirement to report a damage only accident to the police.

'Stopping', according to the interviewing PC, means exchanging insurance details and dealing with the incident properly. That he did not do.

And I was injured, just only realised a bit later. He had no idea if I was injured or not anyway - he didn't care.

System

I see nothing in what has been written to say that the driver, at any time, has recognised that he has possibly been involved in any sort of accident; he therefore does not see anything that needs reporting. His view is that you fell off your bike close to him. Without any witnesses now to counter that then any hope of a criminal case being successful is non-existent. You may stand more chance with a civil case where reasonable doubt is used.

Injuries discovered later? Nobody is a clairvoyant. They were not obvious or realised at the time of the incident (even you didn't) so how would he have known about them?