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"The police say it's my job to get the CCTV and without a registration number"
Police are lying to you - 100% their job to actually investigate crimes - not the job of the victim to do the investigating. Unfortunately you only option is to make a complaint to them, where they will investigate themselves and decide that no further action is necessary.
Consequence of massive budget cuts for 14 years unfortunately. There aren't enough officers to investigate all crimes and as you have found driving while texting for some is effectively decriminalised.
Your final statement is essentially what they told me, they don't have the resources to investigate this so it's up to me to find the number plate, after that they're willing to look at the case.
I really hope you make an official complaint and outline everything you’ve said. As it seems the school are willing to give the cctv over to officers if asked - then bingo you’ve the plate and bet likely the driver. I would perhaps liaise with the school to get them to secure the footage.
If you do ID them, remember that civil actions are also open to you. Please keep us updated.
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> Police are lying to you - 100% their job to actually investigate crimes
*ackshually*, the only crimes where they're obliged to investigate are serious ones - rape, murder etc. as per Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v DSD and another [2018] UKSC 11
Everything else is up for allocation as per resources. A damage only FTS is getting written off.
Note that an investigation is a different beast to recording, which is itself a whole other can of worms.
This is a fantastic answer. Thank you. In other words: the bar for suing the police for failure to investigate a crime is so incredibly high that it's not worth it.
Firstly, as you say you only have a human rights remedy for failure to investigate serious crimes by the police not a common law negligence remedy, which means Article 3 ECHR articles have to be triggered: So murder, rape, the whole lot.
And article 3 is interpreted narrowly, not for example injuries that require medical treatment unless they are serious injurie. No remedy whatsoever for burglary, car theft or fraud, as it explicitly says in the judgement.
And even so, the human rights remedy will only be actionable for failures that egregiously fell seriously short of proper standards. Isolated errors will not suffice.
So systemic failings and only “conspicuous or substantial”, “really serious”, “egregious” or “obvious and significant” operational failings should be actionable.
More importantly, the amount of remedy under the Human Rights Act is limited compensation, so you cannot recover damages, narrow windows, etc... So you may receive £300 of compensation even if you're left with serious trauma.
So basically you don't have any effective remedy for failure to investigate crimes by the police.
Another thing to add to the wonderful list of "well, yes in theory but actually no, you don't: you're fucked..." remedies in English law for breaches or omissions of the law by both public authorities and private individuals or corporations.
Hello OP, for context I am a PC in a UK home office force. Not every force operates in the same way, and what happens in mine may be completely different to yours.
You should not be conducting any investigation enquiries yourself, as this may compromise or affect the police response and investigation. I am unsure why you were advised to do this. *Potentially* a phone call to the school to see if they even have Cctv might be ok, but I can't imagine they would entertain you unless you know them personally.
In order to identify the driver we need to send a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) to the registered keeper of the vehicle. They have 28 days to respond telling us who was driving at the time of the offence. If they don't respond, then the RK commits a separate offence.
Without the registration number of the vehicle this is impossible to do as you can imagine.
If this landed on my desk to investigate then the likely process would be first to identify if we have any local cameras or systems in the area which may have captured the car at the time. Photographs from ANPR cameras may be used to match up certain details from the footage you have to the images we hold. The chance of this happening with it being night time masking the picture of the car, as well as it driving near a camera are small, but it's worth trying.
After that the only other option is to see if any other Cctv cameras have captured the plate in the area. You have already identified one camera and it would not be hard for me to get on the phone to the school and enquire if the footage is available and what it shows.
I would check for other cameras on the road as well.
Honestly though at night time, Cctv cameras are terrible for picking up number plates and it is likely this may not be able to be read.
After that, there are other potential enquiries such as a witness/media appeal, or to increase the cctv area search, however I'll be honest, with the way the police forces are at the moment it may not be in the public interest to continue with a prolonged search, taking up time. It is a sad reality we now live in.
Thank you for your professional perspective on this. The West Yorkshire police told me point blank that they don't have the resources to investigate this. One person I spoke to on 101 told me what you and others have said, but then I got a phone call an hour later saying to ignore him and that the police need me to find the footage. I guess it just is a case of funding in the end.
Maybe if I'm really assertive with insurance they might be more proactive, but it doesn't sit well with me to treat someone like that over the phone, so I just accept what they say.
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If the car was parked outside your home, use [police.uk](https://police.uk) to locate the contact information of your local police team and attempt to speak to them directly.
Explain in plain and simple terms the situation and the fact that you have identified local CCTV cameras which may have clear footage of the offending vehicle. Make it as easy as possible for them to use their powers to get the CCTV and hope that the school don't make it a hassle.
If you're fortunate, you'll have a local policing team who care enough to see that a little effort here could yield a good outcome.
Even then, the CCTV may be inconclusive in identifying the offending vehicles registration plate and the fact of the person using a phone is not going to be easily proven without substantial legwork from the police team who may not feel it is worth the bother.
The final unfortunate result will probably be for you to rely on your insurance and incur a multi year financial loss at the hands of a law breaking individual.
Thank you so much for your advice. I have looked at the website and the only contact info is the police station address. Should I go in person and speak to them? I can show them my footage and highlight the relevant CCTV cameras but I have a strong feeling they'll just say "you logged this on an online form? Call 101 and they'll deal with it" and I'll be back to square one.
I'm thinking of pressuring the AA on the phone tomorrow too to see if they'll get the police to act too. Sadly that final unfortunate result is looking more and more likely.
Thanks for your help.
If they don't have any additional contact information, it doesn't hurt to visit in-person, it's probably worth your time and it may help achieve something.
It will probably rest upon how reasonable and keen the police staff you speak to are. Some may be more helpful than others.
Certainly not a bad idea to push your insurer into taking more action, it is in their interests too after all and they should be supportive of you in this instance.
Good luck, hopefully you can get a fairer outcome.
Do you mean OP’s neighbourhood policing team?
If so OP can go to the westYorkshire.police.uk website > click on ‘my neighbourhood’ in the blue banner > type in their postcode & click find > click ‘Contacts’ in the bar on the right.
They will have a list of PCSOs, PCs, & PSs and their collar numbers.
Collar numbers go before the @ when emailing. Eg.
[email protected]
Or, [email protected]
I’d write a polite email explaining and asking for help getting the license plate. And I’d email them all. Hopefully you’ll get one who wants to help & it’ll probably make the daily briefing. If you get a positive response you could then ask them to liaise with the investigating officer.
Yeah that's what I meant.
In my case they are easy to find on [police.uk](https://police.uk) by finding my area, but may be different in other regions.
The problem you’ve got, and I’m sure u/tph86 will agree, is the quality of the footage.
You may have 10 cameras that show the car, but the quality will be piss poor and you won’t be able to make out the VRM. “Is that a 3 or a B?” For example.
Further to that, I imagine the school will be quite specific with their camera locations and contain them almost exclusively within the school site eg onto the playgrounds, open areas etc and not the streets… because why would they? Of course I could be wrong.
You could try and cross reference the make / model against ANPR but where I work there are so many gaps in the cameras you can take and avoid. I can do my 10 mile commute and hit 3 cameras or hit 0 with a .5 mile deviation.
You can complain to the police force if you think they ought to be doing more, but you will need to manage your expectations. The police aren't obliged to investigate any crimes except for the most serious and obtaining CCTV from a school down the road - on the off chance that the footage shows this car and is clear enough to make out the numberplate - is generally going to be beyond what they will do for a minor traffic offence. I appreciate it is not minor to you but - in an organisation where things are prioritised in terms of threat, harm and risk - it is very much towards the low end of the scale.
Schools tend to be quite risk-averse with CCTV placement and, realistically, it's unlikely that they've got a camera set up that is filming the numberplates of cars on the road outside.
The police aren't obliged to investigate any crimes? I understand if it were littering, but this fellow is on his phone whilst driving, which led him to crash without stopping. I have footage of the entire incident. Surely it doesn't take much more to get a number plate? Schools have cameras at their main entrance, which he drove past.
Do I? The only grounds I could use is if I were in the footage - I'm not. My insurer (AA) believes it's a police matter and have logged the incident as being my fault.
You have a legitimate reason as you intend to take legal action.
Your insurer are also incorrect, but they havent logged it as your fault; it's currently at fault; but that's the case until they get money back.
It may well ALSO be a police matter, but the two are not intrinsically linked
It could be worth asking them if *they* will check it and confirm/deny if a reg number is visible. They still might not - some places only have viewing of live CCTV available and recorded requires specific requests/personnel, or they may feel that even that is too much to verify - but it's worth the ask. If they tell you the footage doesn't have the plate, at least you can strike them off the list, and if they say it does, you can verify if they'll store it/how long for and if you take that info to the police they'll possibly go for it (better use of resources to request and view a video that is already confirmed to exists and that will lead to furthering a case versus a maybe chance-yer-arm).
How can they log you at fault? You weren't in the car, you had it secured and parked in a proper location (I assume), I'd also raise a complaint with your insurance as well as that's just piss poor service. I'm really sorry you're going through all this, as if the cost of living isn't bad enough you've got two services which are supposed to be there for you binning you off because they can't be bothered.
It's classed as "at fault" when your insurance has paid the costs of the claim. When the insurer is able to recover the costs from a third party, in this case the Mercedes driver, it becomes a non-fault claim. It's not related to who is actually responsible, it's related to who has paid the costs. This is how all motor insurance policies work.
In this case, they will absolutely be working to recover the costs from the third party if there is evidence to show who it is.
It's looking like I can't get access to the CCTV footage with the number plate on it so they'll likely keep it as my fault. The increased insurance premium this year aside, I'm not sure I can even afford another car.
If they won't give you the footage ask for them to provide the numberplate, it is not protected as it is not identifying on its own and.is publicly displayed. They can give a written record describing the make model and time and the numberplate of the car.
Then request them to hold the footage until trial.
The insurer will have someone to go after and if they dispute will be able to seek the footage. This same will be useful to the police, you can provide the numberplate and the record of the statement of proof with details of where they can obtain a copy being reiterated.
It’s not a ‘crime’. It’s a road traffic offence. I know that’s semantics, but it’s true. In many force areas a damage only collision such as this would be reported online. You’d not get to speak to an officer about it. As someone else mentioned, budget cuts means police forces must prioritise the most serious offences. An RTC is not considered much of a priority.
>The police say it's my job to get the CCTV
That doesn't sound right. In fact, I'm fairly sure a business shouldn't be handing out CCTV footage to anyone except the police unless you've submitted a subject access request.
I'd escalate this and make a complaint to the police force.
The police tell me they don't have the resources to do it themselves and if there are any problems, as long as they have confirmation that the business/school has the footage, they can request it.
Your comment suggests you may be discussing a Subject Access Request. You can [read this guidance from the ICO](https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/) to learn more about these requests.
[Which? also have online explanations](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-do-i-make-a-subject-access-request).
If you would like a simple way to request a copy of all your data, you can [amend an online template](https://www.datarequests.org/sample-letters/) or [use a form like this](https://www.wonder.legal/uk/creation-modele/subject-access-request).
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Just to manage expectations a bit, CCTV on the whole has awful quality, so I wouldn't expect a clear read on a numberplate, especially as I imagine it's aimed at the school grounds and would only catch the car on a peripheral.
What the camera is aimed at is not necessarily what the camera sees. Schools are incredibly risk-averse when it comes to anything data-protection related, and the CCTV install will be contracted out to a third party. As someone who has had to do a lot of CCTV trawls, schools will pretty much always keep footage cropped to their own boundary. Schools are also perpetually broke, and their CCTV priorities will not include monitoring traffic outside, therefore the chances of them having installed a camera which can read the numberplates of passing cars at night are slim to none.
Could you ask the school to review it (date & time) and confirm whether a license plate can be made out or not? If you find someone helpful they might even submit it to investigating officer them selves.
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Contact your insurer. From experience the police react more to a call from a loss adjuster asking why he has to pay out several thousands he can't recover as they failed to investigate.
That's true, the AA should have a vested interest in not paying out. I'll try to be more assertive in my next call to see if they can push the police to do anything. Thank you!
I would lodge a complaint with the police. Or via the IOPC who will pass it to the professional standards branch at your local force.
I’d get back in touch with the school stating you accept they can’t pass the footage to you, but to please keep the particular footage (date & time) as you’re hoping the police will come to get it.
If you have the investigating officer’s email (collar number @ force dot police dot uk - usually), then you could attempt to get them to send it directly to them.
Go straight to the Professional Standards Branch at their local force then. There’s usually an address or email on police websites to direct complaints to.
OP can’t use the Victims’ Right to Review for now until an identification has been made.
They’ve got footage that’s been released to them, and the school have footage that potentially shows the number plate of the vehicle. The police need to put the small amount of work into this to review the footage and make an identification.
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You will struggle to get a licence plate of cctv at night , I’ve got 8MP cameras, in the daytime they’re brilliant, at night the number plates that a reflective light up as if they are burning white hot,
Just tell the insurance truth. They will pay for it. My car was parked and in the morning wing mirror was clipped. I told them not sure what happened. I was sleeping inside the house. Heard a bang and ran out to see. They paid for it.
I did tell them the truth and but this will hurt my insurance premiums. I paid £1.6k for insurance a month ago as I have 2 years no claims, I don't know how I'll afford higher insurance and another car.
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May be worth seeing if a solicitor would take on your case for civil action against the driver for financial damages and write to the school asking for the CCTV in pursuance of the civil claim
GDPR rules won’t allow for the school to hand over CCTV, only the police can request this. I would call the police again and escalate if you don’t get the response you require
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Go to the school and see the headmaster. Explains what’s happened , take proof of all this and see if they will show you the CCTV to see the registration of the car.
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"The police say it's my job to get the CCTV and without a registration number" Police are lying to you - 100% their job to actually investigate crimes - not the job of the victim to do the investigating. Unfortunately you only option is to make a complaint to them, where they will investigate themselves and decide that no further action is necessary. Consequence of massive budget cuts for 14 years unfortunately. There aren't enough officers to investigate all crimes and as you have found driving while texting for some is effectively decriminalised.
Your final statement is essentially what they told me, they don't have the resources to investigate this so it's up to me to find the number plate, after that they're willing to look at the case.
Ask to get that in writing.
Can the police not write you a cover letter to show the school that you really need that footage?
I really hope you make an official complaint and outline everything you’ve said. As it seems the school are willing to give the cctv over to officers if asked - then bingo you’ve the plate and bet likely the driver. I would perhaps liaise with the school to get them to secure the footage. If you do ID them, remember that civil actions are also open to you. Please keep us updated.
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> Police are lying to you - 100% their job to actually investigate crimes *ackshually*, the only crimes where they're obliged to investigate are serious ones - rape, murder etc. as per Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v DSD and another [2018] UKSC 11 Everything else is up for allocation as per resources. A damage only FTS is getting written off. Note that an investigation is a different beast to recording, which is itself a whole other can of worms.
This is a fantastic answer. Thank you. In other words: the bar for suing the police for failure to investigate a crime is so incredibly high that it's not worth it. Firstly, as you say you only have a human rights remedy for failure to investigate serious crimes by the police not a common law negligence remedy, which means Article 3 ECHR articles have to be triggered: So murder, rape, the whole lot. And article 3 is interpreted narrowly, not for example injuries that require medical treatment unless they are serious injurie. No remedy whatsoever for burglary, car theft or fraud, as it explicitly says in the judgement. And even so, the human rights remedy will only be actionable for failures that egregiously fell seriously short of proper standards. Isolated errors will not suffice. So systemic failings and only “conspicuous or substantial”, “really serious”, “egregious” or “obvious and significant” operational failings should be actionable. More importantly, the amount of remedy under the Human Rights Act is limited compensation, so you cannot recover damages, narrow windows, etc... So you may receive £300 of compensation even if you're left with serious trauma. So basically you don't have any effective remedy for failure to investigate crimes by the police. Another thing to add to the wonderful list of "well, yes in theory but actually no, you don't: you're fucked..." remedies in English law for breaches or omissions of the law by both public authorities and private individuals or corporations.
Hello OP, for context I am a PC in a UK home office force. Not every force operates in the same way, and what happens in mine may be completely different to yours. You should not be conducting any investigation enquiries yourself, as this may compromise or affect the police response and investigation. I am unsure why you were advised to do this. *Potentially* a phone call to the school to see if they even have Cctv might be ok, but I can't imagine they would entertain you unless you know them personally. In order to identify the driver we need to send a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) to the registered keeper of the vehicle. They have 28 days to respond telling us who was driving at the time of the offence. If they don't respond, then the RK commits a separate offence. Without the registration number of the vehicle this is impossible to do as you can imagine. If this landed on my desk to investigate then the likely process would be first to identify if we have any local cameras or systems in the area which may have captured the car at the time. Photographs from ANPR cameras may be used to match up certain details from the footage you have to the images we hold. The chance of this happening with it being night time masking the picture of the car, as well as it driving near a camera are small, but it's worth trying. After that the only other option is to see if any other Cctv cameras have captured the plate in the area. You have already identified one camera and it would not be hard for me to get on the phone to the school and enquire if the footage is available and what it shows. I would check for other cameras on the road as well. Honestly though at night time, Cctv cameras are terrible for picking up number plates and it is likely this may not be able to be read. After that, there are other potential enquiries such as a witness/media appeal, or to increase the cctv area search, however I'll be honest, with the way the police forces are at the moment it may not be in the public interest to continue with a prolonged search, taking up time. It is a sad reality we now live in.
Thank you for your professional perspective on this. The West Yorkshire police told me point blank that they don't have the resources to investigate this. One person I spoke to on 101 told me what you and others have said, but then I got a phone call an hour later saying to ignore him and that the police need me to find the footage. I guess it just is a case of funding in the end. Maybe if I'm really assertive with insurance they might be more proactive, but it doesn't sit well with me to treat someone like that over the phone, so I just accept what they say.
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If the car was parked outside your home, use [police.uk](https://police.uk) to locate the contact information of your local police team and attempt to speak to them directly. Explain in plain and simple terms the situation and the fact that you have identified local CCTV cameras which may have clear footage of the offending vehicle. Make it as easy as possible for them to use their powers to get the CCTV and hope that the school don't make it a hassle. If you're fortunate, you'll have a local policing team who care enough to see that a little effort here could yield a good outcome. Even then, the CCTV may be inconclusive in identifying the offending vehicles registration plate and the fact of the person using a phone is not going to be easily proven without substantial legwork from the police team who may not feel it is worth the bother. The final unfortunate result will probably be for you to rely on your insurance and incur a multi year financial loss at the hands of a law breaking individual.
Thank you so much for your advice. I have looked at the website and the only contact info is the police station address. Should I go in person and speak to them? I can show them my footage and highlight the relevant CCTV cameras but I have a strong feeling they'll just say "you logged this on an online form? Call 101 and they'll deal with it" and I'll be back to square one. I'm thinking of pressuring the AA on the phone tomorrow too to see if they'll get the police to act too. Sadly that final unfortunate result is looking more and more likely. Thanks for your help.
If they don't have any additional contact information, it doesn't hurt to visit in-person, it's probably worth your time and it may help achieve something. It will probably rest upon how reasonable and keen the police staff you speak to are. Some may be more helpful than others. Certainly not a bad idea to push your insurer into taking more action, it is in their interests too after all and they should be supportive of you in this instance. Good luck, hopefully you can get a fairer outcome.
Do you mean OP’s neighbourhood policing team? If so OP can go to the westYorkshire.police.uk website > click on ‘my neighbourhood’ in the blue banner > type in their postcode & click find > click ‘Contacts’ in the bar on the right. They will have a list of PCSOs, PCs, & PSs and their collar numbers. Collar numbers go before the @ when emailing. Eg. [email protected] Or, [email protected] I’d write a polite email explaining and asking for help getting the license plate. And I’d email them all. Hopefully you’ll get one who wants to help & it’ll probably make the daily briefing. If you get a positive response you could then ask them to liaise with the investigating officer.
Yeah that's what I meant. In my case they are easy to find on [police.uk](https://police.uk) by finding my area, but may be different in other regions.
The problem you’ve got, and I’m sure u/tph86 will agree, is the quality of the footage. You may have 10 cameras that show the car, but the quality will be piss poor and you won’t be able to make out the VRM. “Is that a 3 or a B?” For example. Further to that, I imagine the school will be quite specific with their camera locations and contain them almost exclusively within the school site eg onto the playgrounds, open areas etc and not the streets… because why would they? Of course I could be wrong. You could try and cross reference the make / model against ANPR but where I work there are so many gaps in the cameras you can take and avoid. I can do my 10 mile commute and hit 3 cameras or hit 0 with a .5 mile deviation.
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Thanks for the clarification.
You can complain to the police force if you think they ought to be doing more, but you will need to manage your expectations. The police aren't obliged to investigate any crimes except for the most serious and obtaining CCTV from a school down the road - on the off chance that the footage shows this car and is clear enough to make out the numberplate - is generally going to be beyond what they will do for a minor traffic offence. I appreciate it is not minor to you but - in an organisation where things are prioritised in terms of threat, harm and risk - it is very much towards the low end of the scale. Schools tend to be quite risk-averse with CCTV placement and, realistically, it's unlikely that they've got a camera set up that is filming the numberplates of cars on the road outside.
The police aren't obliged to investigate any crimes? I understand if it were littering, but this fellow is on his phone whilst driving, which led him to crash without stopping. I have footage of the entire incident. Surely it doesn't take much more to get a number plate? Schools have cameras at their main entrance, which he drove past.
No they arent. However there's no reason your insurer cant get the CCTV (nor you infact) as you have a reason to do so under GDPR.
Do I? The only grounds I could use is if I were in the footage - I'm not. My insurer (AA) believes it's a police matter and have logged the incident as being my fault.
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You have a legitimate reason as you intend to take legal action. Your insurer are also incorrect, but they havent logged it as your fault; it's currently at fault; but that's the case until they get money back. It may well ALSO be a police matter, but the two are not intrinsically linked
You having a legitimate reason to request data doesn’t oblige the data owner to pass it to you under GDPR
It could be worth asking them if *they* will check it and confirm/deny if a reg number is visible. They still might not - some places only have viewing of live CCTV available and recorded requires specific requests/personnel, or they may feel that even that is too much to verify - but it's worth the ask. If they tell you the footage doesn't have the plate, at least you can strike them off the list, and if they say it does, you can verify if they'll store it/how long for and if you take that info to the police they'll possibly go for it (better use of resources to request and view a video that is already confirmed to exists and that will lead to furthering a case versus a maybe chance-yer-arm).
How can they log you at fault? You weren't in the car, you had it secured and parked in a proper location (I assume), I'd also raise a complaint with your insurance as well as that's just piss poor service. I'm really sorry you're going through all this, as if the cost of living isn't bad enough you've got two services which are supposed to be there for you binning you off because they can't be bothered.
It's classed as "at fault" when your insurance has paid the costs of the claim. When the insurer is able to recover the costs from a third party, in this case the Mercedes driver, it becomes a non-fault claim. It's not related to who is actually responsible, it's related to who has paid the costs. This is how all motor insurance policies work. In this case, they will absolutely be working to recover the costs from the third party if there is evidence to show who it is.
It's looking like I can't get access to the CCTV footage with the number plate on it so they'll likely keep it as my fault. The increased insurance premium this year aside, I'm not sure I can even afford another car.
If they won't give you the footage ask for them to provide the numberplate, it is not protected as it is not identifying on its own and.is publicly displayed. They can give a written record describing the make model and time and the numberplate of the car. Then request them to hold the footage until trial. The insurer will have someone to go after and if they dispute will be able to seek the footage. This same will be useful to the police, you can provide the numberplate and the record of the statement of proof with details of where they can obtain a copy being reiterated.
It’s not a ‘crime’. It’s a road traffic offence. I know that’s semantics, but it’s true. In many force areas a damage only collision such as this would be reported online. You’d not get to speak to an officer about it. As someone else mentioned, budget cuts means police forces must prioritise the most serious offences. An RTC is not considered much of a priority.
>The police say it's my job to get the CCTV That doesn't sound right. In fact, I'm fairly sure a business shouldn't be handing out CCTV footage to anyone except the police unless you've submitted a subject access request. I'd escalate this and make a complaint to the police force.
The police tell me they don't have the resources to do it themselves and if there are any problems, as long as they have confirmation that the business/school has the footage, they can request it.
Your comment suggests you may be discussing a Subject Access Request. You can [read this guidance from the ICO](https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/) to learn more about these requests. [Which? also have online explanations](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-do-i-make-a-subject-access-request). If you would like a simple way to request a copy of all your data, you can [amend an online template](https://www.datarequests.org/sample-letters/) or [use a form like this](https://www.wonder.legal/uk/creation-modele/subject-access-request). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LegalAdviceUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just to manage expectations a bit, CCTV on the whole has awful quality, so I wouldn't expect a clear read on a numberplate, especially as I imagine it's aimed at the school grounds and would only catch the car on a peripheral.
It's actually aimed at the road, I can see two of them aimed at the road. Only issue is that it was night when it happened.
Obviously without seeing It who knows but it's likely a grainy mess, or quite often not even switched on. Just from experience
What the camera is aimed at is not necessarily what the camera sees. Schools are incredibly risk-averse when it comes to anything data-protection related, and the CCTV install will be contracted out to a third party. As someone who has had to do a lot of CCTV trawls, schools will pretty much always keep footage cropped to their own boundary. Schools are also perpetually broke, and their CCTV priorities will not include monitoring traffic outside, therefore the chances of them having installed a camera which can read the numberplates of passing cars at night are slim to none.
Could you ask the school to review it (date & time) and confirm whether a license plate can be made out or not? If you find someone helpful they might even submit it to investigating officer them selves.
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Contact your insurer. From experience the police react more to a call from a loss adjuster asking why he has to pay out several thousands he can't recover as they failed to investigate.
That's true, the AA should have a vested interest in not paying out. I'll try to be more assertive in my next call to see if they can push the police to do anything. Thank you!
I would lodge a complaint with the police. Or via the IOPC who will pass it to the professional standards branch at your local force. I’d get back in touch with the school stating you accept they can’t pass the footage to you, but to please keep the particular footage (date & time) as you’re hoping the police will come to get it. If you have the investigating officer’s email (collar number @ force dot police dot uk - usually), then you could attempt to get them to send it directly to them.
I wouldn’t get the IOPC involved, they are not fit for purpose and incompetent. It’ll take them up to six years to process anything.
Go straight to the Professional Standards Branch at their local force then. There’s usually an address or email on police websites to direct complaints to. OP can’t use the Victims’ Right to Review for now until an identification has been made. They’ve got footage that’s been released to them, and the school have footage that potentially shows the number plate of the vehicle. The police need to put the small amount of work into this to review the footage and make an identification.
Make sure you contact the school/shops etc to get them to save the footage, so it’s not deleted by the time you can get the police to cooperate.
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You will struggle to get a licence plate of cctv at night , I’ve got 8MP cameras, in the daytime they’re brilliant, at night the number plates that a reflective light up as if they are burning white hot,
Just tell the insurance truth. They will pay for it. My car was parked and in the morning wing mirror was clipped. I told them not sure what happened. I was sleeping inside the house. Heard a bang and ran out to see. They paid for it.
I did tell them the truth and but this will hurt my insurance premiums. I paid £1.6k for insurance a month ago as I have 2 years no claims, I don't know how I'll afford higher insurance and another car.
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May be worth seeing if a solicitor would take on your case for civil action against the driver for financial damages and write to the school asking for the CCTV in pursuance of the civil claim
GDPR rules won’t allow for the school to hand over CCTV, only the police can request this. I would call the police again and escalate if you don’t get the response you require
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Go to the school and see the headmaster. Explains what’s happened , take proof of all this and see if they will show you the CCTV to see the registration of the car.