Yes the criminal proceedings are of no real concern to you.
However, the police cannot threaten the Registered Keeper (RK) with prosecution. They need driver’s details (and they will be far more useful to you than those of the RK anyway as the RK may be, for example, a hire or leasing company). In order to obtain this the police have to serve on the Registered Keeper a notice, requesting the driver’s details at the time of the alleged offence. This is done under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act and failure to respond leads to an offence which carries six points and a hefty fine. In circumstances like yours they usually do this along with a NIP (and they will probably warn the RK that Careless Driving and Failing to stop and/or report the incident are being considered). Importantly there is no time limit on the S172 request and it must be complied with whenever it is served. The NIP is not really important to you but for information the Road Traffic Offenders’ Act makes a number of exceptions to the requirements for a NIP::
2 Requirement of warning etc: supplementary.
(1) The requirement of section 1(1) of this Act [which covers the need to serve a NIP] does not apply in relation to an offence if, at the time of the offence or immediately after it, an accident occurs owing to the presence on a road of the vehicle in respect of which the offence was committed.
(3) Failure to comply with the requirement of section 1(1) of this Act is not a bar to the conviction of the accused in a case where the court is satisfied—
(a) that neither the name and address of the accused nor the name and address of the registered keeper, if any, could with reasonable diligence have been ascertained in time for a summons or, as the case may be, a complaint to be served or for a notice to be served or sent in compliance with the requirement,…
Both of these exceptions apply in your circumstances and in any case no NIP at all is required for Failing to Stop/Report.
|