Hit & Run Parked Car Rights

ileah14

Hi There.
I live in an apartment block covered by council cctv. I recently had to leave the country (28/4/18 - 17/5/18l), so I assumed the car would be safe parked in my apartment block, but if not, I felt more secure in leaving it knowing there is cctv. When I arrived back, there is a nasty scrape and dent across my driver door, tire, alloy, and front bumper. There is obvious new damage to a nearby car which just so happens to be the exact same color as the paint transfer on my door, alloy AND bumber, and the damage to their car corresponds with side swiping a silver car at the exact same height and width as the damage that was done to my car, which is silver. Dudley Council have stated that the cctv cannot be reviewed because I don't have the exact date that the incident occurred; I was out of the country, but should I not have expected some protection against such things? I understand that the date range of the 28th of April to the 17th of May is slightly excessive but since there was paint transfer, I would have thought that would help in the review of the footage for a red car hitting my car. My car was still parked in the same space and when I called the council, the man confirmed that he could see my car "live." So there IS video proof of my car being hit and the driver not leaving details. If the law is that cctv footage is kept for 28 days, then the footage is still available, how can the council deny the request? Will they not have to turn over the evidence to my insurance company??
:mad:
The estimated repair costs will be over £1000. On top of all that, this is the very FIRST car I've ever purchased brand new and did that only 6 months ago; it doesn't even have 3000 miles on it. :huh:
isn't CCTV supposed to be a safeguard to help protect people's right's and property in this exact situation??
Any advice?

daveyjp

Complain to your Councillors that their Council staff aren't assisting you with a reasonable request.

BoGoF

Where is this law that states cctv must be kept for 28 days?

The insurer would have no automatic right to request it either.

arcon5

Forget them and speak to the people who own the other car. They may not even be evading repairs. You may just have been uncontactable to them especially since they have made no effort to hide their damage Or have it repaired before you see it.


Take photos of both cars.
Use their reg to find their insurers details and even contact their insurer direct to start a claim.

AndyMc.....

So you expect them to look at three weeks of footage for free?

Barny1979

You could put an FOI request in, anything up to 18 hours is reasonable.

antrobus

ileah14 wrote: »

Hi There.
I live in an apartment block covered by council cctv. I recently had to leave the country (28/4/18 - 17/5/18l), so I assumed the car would be safe parked in my apartment block, but if not, I felt more secure in leaving it knowing there is cctv. When I arrived back, there is a nasty scrape and dent across my driver door, tire, alloy, and front bumper. There is obvious new damage to a nearby car which just so happens to be the exact same color as the paint transfer on my door, alloy AND bumber, and the damage to their car corresponds with side swiping a silver car at the exact same height and width as the damage that was done to my car, which is silver. ...

So not really a hit and run then. More a case of a hit and parked nearby in plain view.:)

Anyway, it means you have an idea of who dunnit.

ileah14 wrote: »

Dudley Council have stated that the cctv cannot be reviewed because I don't have the exact date that the incident occurred; I was out of the country, but should I not have expected some protection against such things? I understand that the date range of the 28th of April to the 17th of May is slightly excessive but since there was paint transfer, I would have thought that would help in the review of the footage for a red car hitting my car. My car was still parked in the same space and when I called the council, the man confirmed that he could see my car "live." So there IS video proof of my car being hit and the driver not leaving details. ..

I don't think that knowing the colour of the car that hit you would help. I doubt very much that CCTV footage is indexed by car colour. Someone is still going to have to sit down and watch 20 days worth of footage. I'd guess they run the files at 4x speed or whatever, but it would still take a few days.

Perhaps if you spoke to some of your neighbours, one of them might be able to narrow the timeframe.

ileah14 wrote: »

If the law is that cctv footage is kept for 28 days, then the footage is still available, how can the council deny the request? Will they not have to turn over the evidence to my insurance company??

I know that you have the legal right to be supplied CCTV footage of yourself. Which clearly does not apply in this case. I don't think you have the right to be supplied CCTV footage that doesn't feature yourself.

Boston BC has a page on CCTV Procedure for the Release of Evidence
http://www.boston.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3848

Scroll down to Third Party Requests for CCTV evidence where it says "Claimants in civil proceedings" (that would be you) who have shown "adequate grounds" are able to access this information at a cost of £20 per hour or so.

Dudley council seem to just say no.
http://www.dudley.gov.uk/business/regeneration/town-centre-managment/town-centre-management---crime-prevention/cctv/

ileah14 wrote: »

:mad:
The estimated repair costs will be over £1000. On top of all that, this is the very FIRST car I've ever purchased brand new and did that only 6 months ago; it doesn't even have 3000 miles on it. :huh:
isn't CCTV supposed to be a safeguard to help protect people's right's and property in this exact situation??

Err, no. Prevention and detection of crime aka surveillance and security. Anything else is a bonus.

ileah14 wrote: »

Any advice?

Contact your insurance company. Provide them with details of the car, photographic evidence etc

angrycrow

The time window is around 480 hours. Even if the system runs at x4 speed based on 7 hour working day that is 17 plus days to review the footage you requested. Do you really think that is reasonable.

onomatopoeia99

You may be able to serve them a Norwich Pharmacal Order to obtain the footage, it seems to fit the criteria. Talk to a lawyer (I'm not one of those).

unforeseen

Not a hope in hell of getting one.
On the faint chance you do get one then you still have a large bill to pay for your and the councils legal and other expenses before you even get to take action against the other side.
Also take into account that there may not be anything usable in what you get.
Would you expect the full 3 weeks of video evidence? How would you deal with Data Protection as there will be a lot that you are not entitled to see?

NPOs are not a magic bullet, they are an action of very last resort in serious casez

kev25v6

Just tell your insurers the reg number of the car that has hit you and let them defend the claim instead.