Hi All,
Again thanks for all the kind words and thoughts. We will still be attending this weekends social.
This part of this post is a synopsis of what occurred today, and is only being written to inform those, who have the belief the police are caring and consider victims, just how wrong they are in this assumption.
During a morning call to my wife (9.10am) she asked me to hold while she answered the front door. Two neighbours advised her they had just witnessed a black Audi convertible career into our cars and the woman driver appeared drunk. After driving in to the cars she was seen to swerve across both sides of a small village road, narrowly missing a school bus. Both witnesses independently obtained the vehicle registration number.
After my wife had verified both our cars were damaged I asked her to call our local police station to report the incident.
After over 22 minutes of being on hold (after dialling 101) she got through to someone. My wife explained the situation and requested an officer attend the scene to photograph the damage and take statements (my wife had confirmed the witnesses were going top be available).
At this point my wife was firmly advised that, as the other party had fled the scene of a road traffic incident it was policy that police attendance would not occur.
My wife was informed she had to attend a police station of her choice, with all of our documentation (driving licence, insurance, current MOT and proof of ownership), where these documents would be checked for validity. Once this had been done the duty officer (civilian) would provide the necessary forms for my wife to complete, after which the incident would be logged and investigated.
My wife was then informed she had 24hrs to attend her chosen police station and report the incident, and failure to do so was an offence that could liable her for prosecution for failure to report a road traffic incident.
Obviously my wife had explained that the 2 vehicles at her disposal had been damaged in the incident and she had no other mean of transport. She also advised we live in a rural area (although the person she was speaking to was from our closet town, so understood this). My wife also advised she was unhappy driving either vehicle as she hadn’t been able to photograph them in situ and didn’t know if they were safe. She was met with a warning that failure to correctly report the incident could be deemed as an offence.
My wife called me to explain and advised she was going to get a lift from a friend to comply.
Well, if I wasn’t really angry before, I certainly was now.
I rang the police station and spoke to the same member of staff, who was as equally belligerent and without empathy to me.
After a brief discussion with her, I advised her how appalled I was with her attitude towards victims, obtained the name and collar number and advised her I wanted to speak to a senior officer.
She had already advised me our conversation was being recorded, which I advised was perfect.
After approx. 10 minutes I received a phone call from the senior station officer, who did have empathy and was very understanding of the situation, but pointed out the policies and procedures are ridged and his operative was correct with the advice she gave.
My phone call with him lasted approx. 30 minutes, so a lot was discussed, but the upshot is this is not a local policy, but national, and unless there has been serious injury or there is life-threatening circumstances, this will be the situation should any of you kind folk suffer a hit and run incident.
To rub salt into the wounds, the senior officer advised he would listen to the digital recording of my phone conversation with his staff member and inform me, by email today, if he feels she was lacking in an understanding approach to our issue and what action he would take to rectify – no email received
And
The husband of the drunk who caused all this advised he contacted the police to report his wife for leaving the scene of the incident and the police said they would attempt to come round and interview her. However he got a phone call about 2 hrs later advising they were too busy, so wouldn’t be attending.
Makes my blood boil.
Jeff
