RTC Failure to stop
Discussion
As the title suggests, I was involved in a minor RTC a few months ago.
Long story short, the driver of the other vehicle was incredibly aggressive and confrontational towards myself and my OH. He refused to exit his vehicle and swap details, I attempted to take the reg of his car and he attempted to run me down.
Thankfully I leapt out of the way and avoided injury. I of course called the police to report the incident.
Luckily, my OH managed to snap several photos of the driver while he was verbally assaulting me.
So, when I've spoken to the BiB they have recorded it as an RTC failure to stop.
My vehicle received negligible damage (small paint chip on rear bumper) and being that it's a snotter I wasn't too concerned about claiming. I have of course reported the matter to my insurers though.
Fast forward a few weeks and a traffic officer gave me a call to advise what was happening. It turns out the vehicle had been sold around 1 month prior and no new keeper had been registered. It did however have an insured party named.
I advised the officer I had photos of the driver and also that I was concerned about pressing charges due to him attempting to run me down.
The officer advised he would serve notice to the insured party and if they failed to respond / provide documents within 28 days they would be summonsed to court, likely facing 6 points and a large fine.
I then received a call from the same officer a few weeks ago who advised that nobody had responded and they would be summonsed to court regarding the incident.
I appreciate that it's not in the public interest to attempt to prosecute this driver for attempting to run me down, however, I am now just wondering 2 things:
1. Will I be required to attend court as a witness / to provide evidence?
2. Would the police not benefit from the photos I have of the driver? As I suspect he was not the insured party surely this could be of some use.
Also, the entire incident was caught on CCTV so there would be video evidence of all the above.
Long story short, the driver of the other vehicle was incredibly aggressive and confrontational towards myself and my OH. He refused to exit his vehicle and swap details, I attempted to take the reg of his car and he attempted to run me down.
Thankfully I leapt out of the way and avoided injury. I of course called the police to report the incident.
Luckily, my OH managed to snap several photos of the driver while he was verbally assaulting me.
So, when I've spoken to the BiB they have recorded it as an RTC failure to stop.
My vehicle received negligible damage (small paint chip on rear bumper) and being that it's a snotter I wasn't too concerned about claiming. I have of course reported the matter to my insurers though.
Fast forward a few weeks and a traffic officer gave me a call to advise what was happening. It turns out the vehicle had been sold around 1 month prior and no new keeper had been registered. It did however have an insured party named.
I advised the officer I had photos of the driver and also that I was concerned about pressing charges due to him attempting to run me down.
The officer advised he would serve notice to the insured party and if they failed to respond / provide documents within 28 days they would be summonsed to court, likely facing 6 points and a large fine.
I then received a call from the same officer a few weeks ago who advised that nobody had responded and they would be summonsed to court regarding the incident.
I appreciate that it's not in the public interest to attempt to prosecute this driver for attempting to run me down, however, I am now just wondering 2 things:
1. Will I be required to attend court as a witness / to provide evidence?
2. Would the police not benefit from the photos I have of the driver? As I suspect he was not the insured party surely this could be of some use.
Also, the entire incident was caught on CCTV so there would be video evidence of all the above.
I see, that was my suspicion, how long do these things usually take to get to court?
While I agree with you, to my understanding after speaking to several people the general consensus is that it would be more effort than is worthwhile to prosecute for attempted assault (or whatever you would call it) and simply doing him for failure to stop is the easiest choice and still gets a result.
I did ask the officer whether he had contacted the manager at the McDonalds which caught the whole incident on CCTV - he advised me they had "let him down" with it. Not sure what he meant by that but I spoke to the manager on the day and he assured me the footage would be stored for police.
I have considered that but to be honest didn't fancy putting my name out there in relation to the matter! Also wasn't sure if the police wouldn't take too kindly to me doing that as it is technically an ongoing criminal investigation.
Thanks for your input!
While I agree with you, to my understanding after speaking to several people the general consensus is that it would be more effort than is worthwhile to prosecute for attempted assault (or whatever you would call it) and simply doing him for failure to stop is the easiest choice and still gets a result.
I did ask the officer whether he had contacted the manager at the McDonalds which caught the whole incident on CCTV - he advised me they had "let him down" with it. Not sure what he meant by that but I spoke to the manager on the day and he assured me the footage would be stored for police.
I have considered that but to be honest didn't fancy putting my name out there in relation to the matter! Also wasn't sure if the police wouldn't take too kindly to me doing that as it is technically an ongoing criminal investigation.
Thanks for your input!
poo at Paul's said:
Why is it not in the public interest to prosecute him for trying to run you over? I'd like to think that they would take that quite seriously?
^^^^ This... I'd agree it's definitely in the public interest, someone who thinks that sort of behaviour is acceptable needs to be dealt with.Forums | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff