Police Being Difficult About Providing The Photo Evidence

Question:

My query is very similar to that on your answers database with the heading “We don’t know who was driving? Mar 24, x”.

I have received a NIP stating my vehicle was photographed by a LASTEC mobile speed camera doing 51 in a 40 on a dual carriage-way.

There were two other people driving my car that day and I genuinely don’t know who was driving at the time of the alleged offence. So, 12 days ago I called the relevant police department asking for a photograph so I can identify the driver.

The adviser said the photo is of the rear of the car and you can’t see who was driving. I said well I’d like to be the judge of that, please send me the photo. They said to send a written request for the photo which I did, immediately, via email.

Today is 12 days after I sent the email and only 9 days until I have to provide a response to the NIP, so I called them again and a different adviser said “Sorry your letter of response it still on our pile, you should receive it this week”, nice delay tactics I note.

The guy also said my request was referred to the traffic officer who has refused to provide the photograph as it is inconclusive and does not show who the driver was. I find it absolutely ridiculous that they are asking me to identify the driver but cannot provide a photograph for me to do so.

I raised this with the guy on the phone who sympathised with me but just kept saying “As owner of the vehicle, you are required by law to know who is driving the vehicle at all times”. Is this true?

Is this the only leg they have to stand on here? I said, “So if I don’t know who was driving and you can’t give me the photograph, do I just have to admit it was me and hope that you don’t have evidence proving it wasn’t, in which case I would be providing false details and committing perjury?”

The guy sounded confused and said, “Errr, yeah”. Fantastic, brilliant, what an amazingly efficient system we have here! Please can you help?

Dominic Says:

Don’t lose heart with our system. It works better than you might think.

The police always come down hard when you cannot name the driver. This is a deliberate deterrent. Most people just end up tossing a coin or coming clean and admitting it was them.

For the genuine cases s.172(4) offers a statutory defence of using reasonable diligence to figure it out.

Have you seen the section 172 page of my site where I outline the things that you should do in order to show reasonable diligence and also the ACPO document link that says the police have to provide the photos.

www.acpo.police.uk/…/guidance_provision_viewing_images_cameras_website.doc

Make sure you keep copies of every letter that you send and make sure you provide the contact details of the other potential drivers.

If you would like me to try and dissuade the police from issuing proceedings then come back to me and I will be happy to assist further.

Have you got any points already by the way?