Car accident query

FacingReality

Somebody scraped the side of my wife's car and drove off (as a lot of people seem to do nowadays unfortunately).


We think it was done in her works car park. There is CCTV coverage in the car park which may or may not show anything but security say they can't even look at the footage without the police being involved due to data protection laws. Is this correct?


I can understand not releasing any footage to my wife without police involvement but can't believe they themselves cannot look at it.

Quentin

They probably can't be bothered to look (or there may be cost involved) and have made up the need for "police involvement" as a first line excuse to put her off.

Police are unlikely to help out

As you can't specify the time of the incident (or if there was one) then expect to have to pay whoever operates the tv to view the footage for you


If they refuse, then you ultimately can try to get a court order to view the footage.

AdrianC

FacingReality wrote: »

There is CCTV coverage in the car park which may or may not show anything but security say they can't even look at the footage without the police being involved due to data protection laws. Is this correct?

No.

"Data Protection", along with "Health & Safety", "Human Rights" and "The EU" are the great bogeymen of our times. Can't be bothered to do something? Don't know how to do it? Pick one of those four, and blame it! Vague resemblance to reality not required... It's the adult equivalent of a two year old, asking "Why?" being told "Because I say so!".

Practically, though, if they refuse you have somewhere in the region of nothing that you can do about it. If you claim from your insurance, and tell them that the CCTV should cover it, the insurer may chase it up officially - and should get somewhere. But if they don't, it's a claim from your policy.

fred7777

No it's not.

She should take this further within her company. What's the point of having CCTV in the car park if nobody can view it?

A friend of mine had an identical problem a few years back. The Police didn't want to get involved but security wouldn't show the footage without the Police. They persisted and got the footage.

Alternatively I believe she may be able to issue a subject access request under the data protection act to get access to the footage as it will show her entering and leaving the car.

Alexd52

Where I work, if a traffic incident is reported on site, cctv footage is always reviewed as part of the investigation without police involvement