Following on from the “Assault by transit” thread a couple of months ago (here), I have just been told by the pc on the case that they have closed it.

The reason given is that the registered keeper of the van had sold it in July, to someone who sold it again a few weeks ago. The V5 hadn’t been updated until the police started asking about the van, and the current owner “has not co-operated in providing us with the previous owner.”

No mention of having checked insurance databases, and skating over the fact that if they had investigated at the time of the report, they might have been more successful.

Completely unapologetic about the fact they aren’t bothering about sexual assault and dangerous driving – just “the crime will now be filed.”

Before I start the Twitter/Facebook approach, does anyone have any thoughts on whether the police should have done more?

make a formal complaint to the chief constable, and the police commissioner person that you voted for.

ping me an email and i’ll tell you who the insurers are, complaint to Police (i had the exact same problem) and have a civil action against the insurers.

pauljwhitlock at gmail.com

I had a similar vehicle tracing experience recently with an uninsured hit and run. They sent letters to registered owners, traced it through several intermediate owners and auction houses, the final person made up an address they couldn’t validate and that’s the end of the trail. Completely flawed system.