Car hit in car park - police doing nothing despite car park having CCTV cameras

Tray2

Hi,

We parked in a council run car park for an hour last Monday, and came back to find that someone had hit our car. They hit it so hard that the rear was moved across the space. Damaged the door and rear quarter of the car.

They didn't leave a note and there are no witnesses (we also asked at a nearby cafe if they saw/heard anything).

The City Council operate CCTV in this car park and there is a CCTV camera pointing in the direction of where our car was parked. We have the parking ticket showing the window that we were parked.

We reported this to the police, but we have since received a very generic letter to say they will not be pursuing and have closed the case. This morning we rang to find out why - turns out they have not bothered to contact the City Council because they would require the CCTV to be zoomed in and for there to be a witness. Is the police just fobbing us off? Surely the registration number would suffice as they can get registered owner off DVLA and they would have to say who was driving at the time?

The insurance company says it is up to the police to track down who did it.

Its to frustrating - I was just 3 months of getting my NCB protected, and we have a £150 excess to pay. No doubt our renewal premium will be higher due to loss of NCB and having to claim on my own policy. Am more than half way through maternity leave and this is the last thing that we need as we have been trying really hard to save and budget. Just glad we didn't choose a higher excess when we took out the policy. We were offered a Peugeot 107 under our hire car cover but this is no good with a car seat and buggy so we are having to pay extra daily for a bigger car (which is still smaller than our own car to keep our costs down).

Any advice on how we can move things along - i.e. so the person who did it can be tracked down and we can claim against them (we have legal cover).

Thank you for your time reading this, any advice is much appreciated.

Tray

Quentin

Tray2 wrote: »

....Any advice on how we can move things along - i.e. so the person who did it can be tracked down and we can claim against them (we have legal cover).....

Going to be hard with no witness. Maybe you can put an appeal for a witness in the local paper.

It looks like you have already started a claim and been provided a car from your insurer?

If so, your insurer will claim against the third party if they can be identified, and if successful your NCD will be reinstated, and you will just need to claim your uninsured losses.

Tray2

Yeah we have already started a claim as we wanted to get our car fixed asap - contacted the insurer as soon as we got home. All we could do at the time was take photos and ask at the cafe if they had seen anything. The hire car has been provided by our insurer - but we were offered the pug 107 because its meant to keep us mobile as opposed to being anything like our own car.

Appealing for a witness sounds like a good idea thank you

huckster

What is stopping you making a data protection subject access request for the CCTV footage. This will cost you £10, but can take up to 40 days to supply. There should be a notice in the car park, as who you contact to make the request.

Armed with useful footage and a number plate of the third party vehicle, you can find out who they are and then write threatening legal action. And if they don't respond, you can issue a court claim against them.

Buzby

Agreed - time will be of the essence, but the police will treat this as a private dispute. A copy of he incident - IF captured, as long as the registration mark is visible, you can get the details from the DVLA then raise a small claims action.