Presumably this charge will only be levied to the criminals who stole/damaged the car etc.
If so it could be looked at as a bonus payment to the police? The more cars recovered, criminals caught, the more £100 they get.
But I don't suppose it will work like that ?
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I am afraid not! Your car is nick and recovered - you wnan an investigation - you pay for it or you don't get one! This is how read the article (Sunday Times, page 7 - can't post a link)
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I remember that a few years ago when I had an Escort stolen the Police tried to get me to pay up front for a similar scheme - I think they wanted around £90 to have the car removed from wherever it was found and secured for me to collect. No mention was made though of any forensic tests.
What I found especially galling was that the car was stolen from in front of my house within five minutes of my parking up, and I immediately reported the theft. The police response was equally immediate though - they told me straight away they had no resources available for do anything. This was in spite of the fact I knew which way the car was heading and that at the time of reporting the theft it couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards from my house.
I never saw the car again of course, no great loss as it wasn't worth much more than the £90!
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"Forensicate" - confirms my suspicions - HMG are employing people who can't string two words of the Queen's English together......
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Police to use Mobile Library services for transport....maybe your late book fines will be used to pay for the derv.
How about they charge by the hour whilst investigating your burglary
A £1 toll at each junction where they might be directing traffic.
How about issuing a FPN for an offence but also charge 10p per minute they spend filling out the form.
Don't forget the hospital that removed every other light bulb to save on electricity, or the other hospital that decided not to change sheets when different patients used a bed.
3rd world Britain?......dunno, but can't be too far off.
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tinyurl.com/254zgv
If true then an absolute disgrace and more alienation of police/public relationship.
Days long gone when a 'procedure' was floated by HO then the opinion of Chief Constables were sought and if they were in agreement then it was brought in. If they have agreed with HO it speaks volumns on the 'quality' on Police Chief officers.
I am aware that the Forensic Service is being strapped for cash with little injection as more is asked of them through developments i.e. DNA etc. yet Bungle Brown seems hell bent on wasting money.
But what the hell are we paying out taxes for?
dvd
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Just thought of something else.........how long will it be before the police cite "carbon footprint" to limit the calls they would attend in a vehicle.
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Yet another stealth tax, you pay your national insurance then pay again for prescriptions, you pay your council tax and it's suggested that you will be paying to take away rubbish, and for police investigations, you pay income tax on money you earn then tax (VAT) again when you spend it , rip-off Britian.
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If you read the article properly I think that you misinterpreted it all wrong, as the Sunday Times have made a hash of reporting the story.
What the article is basically saying is that if your stolen car is found by the police then you will be given two options of what can happen. Firstly if you want to arrange your own collection/recovery of the vehicle yourself then it fine but that is as far as the investigation can go. Or secondly the police can arrange the recovery through one of their approved contractors, where the car will be taken to the contractors garage which will have special SOCO facilities where the car will be examined by the police forces forensic team.
The £105 fee is the statutory fee that then has to be paid to the recovery garage before the car is released back to the owner. The fee is not for the police (bad reporting) it is to cover the contractors costs of recovering the car and preserving it in a secure undercover area until it can be forensically examined. There will also be a storage fee of £12 per day whilst the car is under the care of the recovery garage, which again is a statutory fee.
So why does the car have to be recovered by an approved garage just so it can be forensically examined? - This is because the car has to recovered with the minimum amount of contamination to preserve any evidence inside/outside the car. The car is taken away and stored inside where it is not allowed to be touched by anyone until the SOCO teams have finished with it. The car has to be kept inside to keep it dry as you can't fingerprint a damp/wet vehicle and it has to be kept in a 'clean' area where it can not become contaminated with other evidence. So for you to drive your own car home, park it in the street where anyone could touch it and then expect a SOCO team to fingerprint it in the rain is just not practical.
This system has been going on for years so why it has suddenly been reported in the Sunday Times remains a mystery. Maybe it is because they are now going to contact the owner of the vehicle prior to the police arranging their own recovery to give the owners the option of sorting it out themselves and for free. In the past it has been usual practice for the police to just have the vehicle recovered regardless.
So in summary the £105 is the recovery fee paid to the approved garage and not anything to do with paying the forensic team to examine your car.
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Oh! Thats ok then.
I thought I was going to have to spe nd out my money when my car had been stolen ! Oh ! I am !
Might it not be cheaper long term to just give these criminals a car at our expense so we don't have to pay out these extra chharges? If our road tax was increased by just £ 50 it should generate enough money to buy enough vehicles for them?
Then they would leave ours alone and stop the extra payouts?
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Sensible post Simon. The other reason is likely to be Health and Safety as well, it isn't safe or practical to examine cars where they are found. Makes sense.
Modern cars are difficult to nick unless the owner is careless or complacent, one of my regulars nicks cars from garage forecourt with er....the keys in them, the other trend locally is to burglarise houses and stealify the hardly hidden keys, simple preventative steps will prevent you being chargified for your car to be forensicated by the Policifiers.
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Nice one PU :-)
Only trouble is I find myself reading it in a George W Bush voice!!!
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Sensible post Simon. The other reason is likely to be ...
Excellent.
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So in summary the £105 is the recovery fee paid to the approved garage and not anything to do with paying the forensic team to examine your car.
Weasel words if ever I heard any. The bottom line is that if we want any chance of them finding the culprits, we must pay. What this means is we are creating a two tier police service: standard, for the masses, and premium, for the wealthy.
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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It's not that at all Leif, read Simon's post and it explainsifies it perfectly.
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It's not that at all Leif, read Simon's post and it explainsifies it perfectly.
I have re-readified it and I am now properly educationalised.
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its amazing what you can learn yourself on tinternetty
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Simon I have read the article - I don't think you have or you have a different 'take' on it. Quote
"Motorists whose cars are stolen are being told that they must pay the police at least £105 if they want them to recover the vehicle when it is found and check it for forensic clues" Seems very clear to me! This fee covers recovery and fingerprint DNA type checks - don't pay and it won't be done
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Its down to poor/misleading reporting by the Sunday Times. The fee's involved are for the recovery of the vehicle - not the forensic examination.
But one is the consequence of the other, ie if your car is not recovered by one of the police's approved garages, then it won't be taken to an approved SOCO examination site (normally within the garages workshop), and hence your car will not get examined for forensic clues. So basically you car won't get forensically examined without attracting a recovery fee of £105.
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Fine - I can see it that way! In any event, it is a scandalous further charge on motorists who already fund police services thru coucil and general taxation!
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Simon is bang on.
You report your car stolen. You are given two options if it is located:
1. You can authorise recovery by a Police approved recovery agent from where you can collect it at your convenience.
2. You do not authorise recovery and you are notified of its current state and location.You may at this stage authorise recovery.
The problem here is that often the complainant is uncontactable for whatever reason when vehicles are recovered or they are undriveable. The Police are not going to babysit the car for too long. So you will be encouraged to authorise recovery should you not be in a position to attend immediatly.
What the article is basically saying is that if you chose to collect the vehicle yourself then it is not going to get forensically looked at because of integrity issues,further contamination and a suitable environment to conduct the examination. The other problem is that the SOCO teams will be trying to play catchup with the owner who wants the car for work, not available etc etc.
Now as regards the £105 recovery fee; steep as it may be, this is to pay the recovery agent.Its a standard charge and should be paid for by your insurance policy.
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Fullchat
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At one time when it was possible to steal cars with only a screwdriver and then they abandoned, the police used to remove the ht leads and dizzy cap in case either the thieves came back or a new set of thieves decided to use it.
About 14 years ago when i just managed to stop some kids pinching the wifes fiesta by chasing them in my underpants (not a pretty site) the police advised that i disconnected the battery in case they came back to roll it .
down the road to try stealing it again,
Unfortunately what happens more and more these days is that if your vehicle is stolen and abandoned unless it is recovered pronto then it will either be smashed up or fired.
As simon says the local police approved recovery firm come and remove it and store it and to be realistic £105 is probably the figure worked out by the body that all good companies are members of.
The good thing is that once recovered all the property that hasnt been stolen will still be in your vehicle even if it was only some bay city rovers 8 track tapes
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Bell Boy - in 30 years of dealing with desperados of various sorts I have never come anyone who nicked a Bay City Rollers record/8track/cassette/CD or MP3 !
Another thought I have dealt with very few tea leaves that :-
(a) Wore glasses
(b) Smoked a pipe
or
(c) Wore a full beard.
Makes you think.
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My parents had their car stolen a year or so back. Mum had driven the car out of the garage and knowing that turning the engine off causes problems with the CAT she left it running whilst she locked the garage. By the time she'd turned round the car was already being driven away. It was found by the police only 400 yards from her home, predictably without her handbag in it.
She was offered only one choice, and that was recovery, at something a little over £100. Couldn't collect it herself or get anyone else to collect it in case it wasn't safe to drive. Just because the insurance company are paying these fees doesn't make them right, especially when in that case there was no way of avoiding paying for them.
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I read often, only post occasionally
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it's amazing how many people decline the offer of recovery... i.e. at the time you report it stolen and are asked that, should it be found, how do you want it dealt with (either leave it in situ for you to collect or have it recovered by a contractor).....many people with quite decent cars refuse the offer of recovery
when you think that unpleasant types steal them, it can be no surprise that the stolen car is left abandoned in an unpleasant area......where unless you're quick it might get stolen again/torched/damaged more etc.......and...do you really want to venture into an unknown unpleasant area, not knowing if the car will start etc......for the sake of a 100 quid
you can't expect the old bill to sit up watching a car for hours on end, just because the owner doesn't want to pay up for a contractor to remove it, (the contractor's usually have to agree they'll turn up within an hour, which limits police wasted time)
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"She was offered only one choice, and that was recovery, at something a little over £100. Couldn't collect it herself or get anyone else to collect it in case it wasn't safe to drive. Just because the insurance company are paying these fees doesn't make them right, especially when in that case there was no way of avoiding paying for them."
Isn't that the whole point of the original story - that in future your options will be clearly laid out ; either collect it yourself and not incur any charge or pay the standard recovery charge fee. Seem reasonable.
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Yes, it does seem reasonable. When I thought my car had been stolen (don't ask!) not long ago, and they put these possibilities to me, it was also pointed out that I could change my mind, in other words leave the decision on whether to have the car recovered or do it myself until if had been found. Almost everything seems to cost a ton these days, unless it costs two.
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>>She was offered only one choice, and that was recovery, at something a little over £100. Couldn't collect it >>herself or get anyone else to collect it in case it wasn't safe to drive. Just because the insurance company >>are paying these fees doesn't make them right, especially when in that case there was no way of avoiding >>paying for them.
The fees aren't paid to the police and thus really and truely are nothing to do with them. They are paid to an independant contractor to cover the costs of the work that they are doing ultimately on your behalf - recovering your car to a safe location. No contractor is going to work for free, so unfortunately the owner of the car is responsible for any costs incurred whilst they remain the legal owner of the vehicle.
To put it another light, if a water pipe in your loft burst in the middle of the night and you had to use the services of an emergency plumber to stem the leak, would you expect them to do the job for free? The only difference that I can see in the stolen car scenario is that there is a middle man present who actually authorises the emergency action needed at the time, and that is the police officer present.
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The scenario with the plumber is very different. My mother had a no cost option available. The car could have been collected within five minutes without issue but this option was explicitly denied her by the police. If you could fix your own leaking water pipe would you be happy to be told that you had to wait until a plumber arrived at considerable cost?
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I read often, only post occasionally
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A difference is that, unless you have paid for a home disasters insurance, the plumber wouldn't come our for free, obviously. Some of us might think that you have paid for the services of the police, up front, thru crippling taxation. What next, bills for turning up to RTAs?
They will be there quick enough if you dare to read out the names of the war dead, at the Centotaph, with a permit!
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I really do think the explanation is nothing but weasel words. It is a two tier service according to how much you are willing to pay.
Imagine being in hospital, and you are told that you will not be fed unless you pay. When you ask why, they say "Well, the food is contracted out to a private company, so this really is nothing to do with the NHS." Ooops, I'm giving them ideas.
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with a permit!
That should have been WITHOUT a permit! Senile dimwit!
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It's a matter of choice.......
in most areas nowadays you have minimal police coverage......many reasons for this, covered in other forums, mostly.
1,do you want your local police officer, sat up watching a stolen car for most of the night whilst the owner attends
to recover it...or.....
2,shall they leave it there, phone you and let you attend at your leisure whilst the toerag that stole it re-attends and
drives off in it again......
3,or shall the police themselves tow it away to their own compound (which they don't have) and incur all the extra
costs that this entails to the detriment of policing in general....
4,or call out a private contractor who will charge you £105
no.4 is the better option for the police..... no.3 might be the better option for you, but it will diminish the already diminished service you get in other areas.....i would imagine most people would want the police patrolling as much as possible and dealing with as much crime as they can, not sat watching an empty car for hours on end or spending all their budget on vehicle removals and/or storage
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But surely, the £105 + storage charge can be claimed back from the thieving git via compensation from the small claims court or civil action or even the police prosecution if successfull.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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I don't think there is anything new in this.
10+ years ago we had an old Nissan Sunny estate stolen. It wasn't worth much.
Unfortunately I got a call that it had been found about 200 miles away. I couldn't go to collect it immediately, so the police charged me a fee for recovery and storage. I then had to take a train and taxi to go an collect it. It was in a poor state when I got to it, but drivable after I put some petrol in it. Altogther it cost me a good few hundred quid to get it back, which was probably more than it was worth. The police had no interest in following up the crime and AFAIK no forensics were done on it. Their main concern was for me to collect it.
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Charges for public services is always a tricky issue.
The method of collection using a contractor no doubt offers the best value for money to the tax payer - as pointed out above, why waste a trained police officer's time with it.
But the real issue is, is it fairer for everyone to pay a bit more and have this service free at point of need, or just pass the cost onto the specific users?
Seeing as the users don't choose this service (ie they don't choose to have their car stolen) voluntarily, then it does seem a bit harsh.
I'm sure the police would love to offer the SOCO service free to everyone, but as we all know, expectations of public services never quite tie up with our eagerness to pay.
In fact, in some ways making a specific charge for public services would help in certain cases IMO, as consumers of them would realise just how expensive services can be to deliver, and could make specific choices themselves.
I.e. do I want to have a well maintained park near me? Cost say £25 a year. Do I want to have a street light outside my house? Cost £5 a year. Do I want to be able to call on trading standards in the coming year? If not, then you save £8 from your annual council tax bill. No Social Services? Then save £800. And so on.
The problem comes, as any economist will know, is that public services are often "public goods" i.e. they can be enjoyed for free by someone else who didn't pay (i.e. your neighbour doesn't pay for a streetlight, but goes and parks his car under the light you paid for!!)
Therefore, some services have to be funded out of general tax and be provided for free to everyone. Other services are charged for at point of use where a specific user can be indentified.
So, after the economic-ification of this topic, this service does actually lend itself to having a specific charge made for it.
With the bonus of you being able to opt out if so desired.
Ian
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